I'm Not Even Sorry
"...Leaving millions dead, and thousands displaced from their homes," the reporter finished, lightly chuckling to himself.
Adjusting his headset, the stallion shot a look over to the broadcast assistant in the studio. From the other side of her glass window, she smiled and nodded, confirming that it was time to move on. The reporter sat up, placing his forehooves on the table and leaning into the microphone before him.
"Next up, we have a special guest here on the show. Here to comment on the issues of vigilante justice, I'd like to welcome Captain Goodguy himself, Sir Discord. Sir Discord, thank you for coming on the show. It's a real pleasure."
Discord, out of costume, sat on the other side of the desk by his own microphone, where he was busily unravelling a big ball of yarn with a price tag still on it. He quickly threw it over his shoulder and sat up.
"A pleasure to be here again, Airwaves." He grinned. "Might I say, I think you're looking well tonight?"
"Thank you." Airwaves cleared his throat and pulled up a piece of paper on the desk. "Sir Discord, you've, in your own words, 'served the realm,' for over a thousand years now."
"Correct."
"Starting out, you of course began the Captain Goodguy identity as a joke, and adopted it in earnest in order to better gain the public's trust. Your capers as a costumed hero since then have spanned the centuries. Some would even say that you invented the trend."
"Now that is not true," said Discord, an ice cream cone materialising in his hand. "I got the idea from some aliens that I visit sometimes. Ponies don't often catch my references, and the ponies of the Classical Era certainly didn't, but I assure you, they are all very funny."
Discord maintained eye contact with Airwaves as he summoned a tray of condiments and started adding salt, pepper, vinegar, and ketchup to his ice cream.
"And how do you feel about how costumed vigilantes have evolved since your time?" Airwaves continued, not reacting. "For as long as Sombra sat the throne you've had imitators, but as of the past three years, the number of costumed vigilantes operating in Equestria has risen exponentially."
Once finished ruining his ice cream, Discord offered some to Airwaves; he quietly declined with a shake of his head.
Discord shrugged. "A natural consequence of the rise of modern media. I have always inspired others, but now these images glorifying my heroics can spread much further than they otherwise would've. And fictional comic book heroes such as the Power Ponies lend some further romance to the concept. I cannot overstate the part that they've played in making the superhero life seem attractive to modern ponies. And personally, the comics industry has my thanks for that. I, for one, welcome the new wave of heroes."
"You welcome it?" Airwaves echoed.
"All of this is an example of what I call positive chaos, an upheaval in the system that seeks to fight that which bears opposing â corruption and ineptitude in our police departments, rising crime in the wake of the loss of our beloved king, and the victimisation of innocents. The legality is questionable, true, but ethically, I endorse the rise of new superheroes wholeheartedly. I mean, if it's okay for me to do what I do, with the full sanctioning of the Crown, why not other heroes? Who are we to say that they can't go fight crime too?"
"Ah, I'm glad you mentioned them, actually..."
The radio blared in the background as Brief Pain tinkered with her table of gadgets. In the quiet darkness of her cave, she needed no light to see by, her natural nightvision serving her perfectly. Her pointed fangs ripped a chunk of flesh from an apple, and she chewed it idly while her hooves worked the soldering iron.
"What about the Mare-Do-Well vigilante of Manehatan?" the voice on the radio asked. "She, unlike yourself, has most certainly not been operating with the blessing of the Crown. In fact, she's the top target of the MPD as of this broadcast, wanted for a hundred and twelve counts of murder, not just of criminals, but also of police officers, security guards, corporate leaders, and for some reason, clowns. This not even going into her numerous lesser charges, most prominently assaults and kidnappings. Tell me, Sir Discord, what's your take on her?"
Brief rolled her eyes, ignoring the broadcast and continuing to solder the armoured breastplate in front of her back together. She took another bite of the apple.
"Well, I think she's a real sweetheart," said Discord's voice.
Her tools clanged to the ground, and Brief almost choked. Her head twisted around suddenly, and she stared at the radio as the ruinous words tumbled out of it.
"Really?"
"Oh, yes. You don't know her like I do, but Mare-Do-Well is a real softie once you get down to it. Sure, she gets off on breaking bones and murdering ponies, but she only does it because she really cares about her city a whole lot, and she has a low tolerance for... what did she call it? 'Degenerate behaviour,' I think it was? I don't know. She reads a whole lot of conservative news. My point is, all that she does, she does out of love. It's kind of cute, in a way. She can be so adorable when she's in a bloodlust."
"You've... met before, then?"
"We've met quite a few times, actually. We've had lunch together, we've teamed up to stop criminals, we made out once, but it's kind of a casual relationship. Still, I'd vouch for her over the mayor's office any day of the week. Mare-Do-Well is alright in my book."
Thankfully unseen to any others, Brief Pain blushed furiously, her nose scrunching up as she smouldered at the radio. With a growl, she punched it off the table, and the radio distorted and reduced in volume as it clattered to the ground. She got up and started pacing, the rest of the interview quietly ignored.
"Damn him! Damn you, Captain Goodguy!" she shouted. "I am not 'alright'! I am the night! I am a being to be feared! What are you doing?"
Brief Pain grumbled as she made her way towards the cave's exit. Entering a long vertical shaft, she flapped her leathery wings to ascend towards the surface, until she reached the back of the bookcase leading into her private study. There, a roaring fire was already burning away in the hearth, and her dressing gown waited on a hook for her. She put it on and sat down in a big comfy chair, picking up a glass of wine from a nearby table.
Brief grumbled some more as she drank it down, staring into the fire. Thoughts of revenge flickered at the forefront of her mind, and her face hardened into a scowl. After another sip of wine, she called out for her butler.
"All Fed!"
The door on the other side of the room opened, and All Fed poked his head inside. He was an elderly gentlecolt, grey of coat and white of mane, with a thin moustache, and an expression that was permanently locked into "slightly bored and a little confused."
"Did you hear Sir Discord's interview on the Manehatan News Network?" Brief asked.
"Yes, ma'am," the butler said in his refined Trottingham accent.
"He's ruining me, All Fed. Captain Goodguy has gone too far this time, and I can't let him do it again. He needs to be stopped."
All Fed raised a single eyebrow. "And... how do you propose to do that?"
Brief Pain sat back, stewing for a while as she stared into the fire again. Finally, a smile tugged at the edge of her lips, which turned into a wide, sinister grin.
"All Fed, take a letter."
To Cheese Sandwich,
Heeeey, Cheese, old buddy, old pal. Listen, I know this might be coming a little out of the blue, but I know that CheeseCorp secured the contract to experiment on the remains of the Crystal Heart after that recent nastiness with Cadance the Cold. I was wondering if, as a favour to me, you might be able to lend me some of those crystals that you recovered in the north? I need them for research purposes, you see. I know how you're always trying to kill Captain Goodguy, and I thought it'd be a neat idea if I tried my hoof at it. I promise to share the results if I get any kind of breakthrough!
Your pal, Brief Pain
Cheese Sandwich looked down at the letter and smirked, the red scars at the sides of his mouth and the white clown makeup on his face turning his smile into something grisly. He tossed the letter to one side of his desk and rang a small bell. A young earth mare with a clipboard answered the call, trotting into the sterile white room that made up Cheese's office.
"Yes, Mister Sandwich?"
"Mercy, take this down for me," said Cheese, speaking in a lightly nasal voice.
She readied her notepad and looked to him attentively.
"'To Brief Pain,'" Cheese dictated, as Mercy jotted his words down. "'The true nature of gods and mortals has long eluded the pony race, and the struggle of our species has defined an eon. My quest to destroy a god has been ordained by the greatest power in Equestria â my own will. The will of a pony. Make no mistake, this path I'm set on, that you're now joining, is destiny come calling. I welcome you into my flock, like the shepherds of old. But no, you can't have the remains of the Crystal Heart. I need it. Sorry. Kind regards, Cheese Sandwich. P.S. I'm totally having a house party this weekend. You should come!'"
Mercy finished scribbling out the letter. "Will that be all, sir?"
"Yes. That was perfect."
Cheese slid out of his seat and walked over to the other side of his office, where he stopped to stare at the blank wall.
"Do you know what the oldest lie in Equestria is, Mercy?"
"Sir, if this is another one of your philosophical rants, I really can'tâ"
"What is philosophy, really? Why try to find meaning, when we are all just ants crawling on a big rock in the end? That's what Sir Discord has done to us. He has made ponies insignificant. In the end, he has reduced us to ants. Now we ruin the picnic."
Mercy rubbed her forehead. "Oh Sombra, I do not have time for this today."
Brief Pain grumbled, as she always did while preparing to fight, and loaded another shell into her cannon. Against the dark sky of a Manehatan night, most ponies would've struggled to see her there on that rooftop, clad in her dark purple costume, the brim of her hat low over a masked face. With her cape fluttering behind her in the evening wind, she stepped up to the edge of the roof.
"Reject me, will you? Oh, you'll regret that, Cheese, you pretentious, gibbering, clown-faced son of a whore. After this, I'm going to kill your whole family. And your security guards' families too."
Below, through the busy streets of Manehatan, a convoy trundled along. The wagons, pulled by CheeseCorp ponies in corporate uniform, had briefly stopped in the traffic, their drivers unaware of the doom about to rain down upon them. Now was the perfect opportunity. With a gleeful smile under her mask, Brief Pain aimed her cannon down at them and lit the fuse. The corks in her ears spared her the disorientation as it sounded off, thundering through the night as the street below exploded into flames.
Ponies started screaming, the late-night strollers and drivers abandoning the streets and fleeing into buildings and side-alleys. The CheeseCorp ponies, for their part, reacted with confusion and panic. The wagons were aflame, several of their number were already dead, and one of them was running around on fire, screaming at the top of his lungs. Brief Pain spread her wings and swooped down towards them.
She landed on the wagons with force, drawing her shurikens and throwing them at the nearest ponies she could see. She wasn't even sure that they were all CheeseCorp security, but then again, better to be safe than sorry. Her throwing stars nailed at least one guard in the throat, and another got one in the eye. He collapsed to the ground.
"Arghhh!" he screamed. "Why are you doing this? What did we do?"
Brief ignored him and moved to the back of the burning wagon. The smoke obscured her vision, but with the filtration system under her mask, Brief had no trouble breathing as she climbed inside to search for her quarry. She soon found it. The lockbox presented little challenge to her skills, as she unlocked it with only a bobby pin in less than a minute. Inside the box, the contents glowed a gentle white. Brief Pain smiled to herself as she looked upon them.
Harmony crystals.
She closed the box again and threw it onto her back to carry, stepping out of the wagon. To her surprise, she found a serpentine chimera waiting for her just outside, clad in a bright red costume with purple pants, gloves, and a face mask. A yellow logo on the chest bore the initials CG, and his cape fluttered behind him dramatically, just as Mare-Do-Well's did.
Sir Discord, Captain Goodguy, slapped a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Marey!" he said with a cheerful grin.
Oh, damn it! Play it cool!
"U-Uh... Um... H-Hey, Discord," she replied, her filtration system making her voice sound synthetic and awkward.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
"This is quite some carnage you've wrought. Let me guess. CheeseCorp?"
Brief averted her gaze. Discord tutted and crossed his arms.
"Is this your phobia of clowns again? Listen, I know Cheese Sandwich has done some mean things to me in the past, but that's no reason to get upset on my behalf! It's not like he can harm me! There's no reason to get bent out of shape and murder a whole bunch of ponies."
"...I know," Brief muttered, sullenly looking at the floor.
Discord rolled his eyes and shook his head, but seemed amused nonetheless.
"It's okay, Brief. You can go take the night off. I'll handle all the clean-up. Just, you know, don't do it again, okay? If it can be helped? Every time I bring ponies back from the dead after one of your rampages, they come back missing pieces of their souls and crying about how there's nothing on the other side, and some of them think they've learned eldritch truths and start having dreams about being eaten by demons, and it's a whole big thing... Just, try to stop killing ponies. Please? For me?"
"Okay..."
Discord playfully punched her in the arm.
"Thattagirl! I'll see you around, then." He began to turn away, but stopped abruptly. "Oh! Actually, before I forget, Cheese Sandwich invited me to a house party this Saturday. I guess you would've got an invite too? I know we usually go bowling on Saturdays, but I thought it might be a fun idea to attend together. You know, like as a date?"
Fortunately for Brief, the mask hid her blush, but she still struggled to get the words out.
"Y-Yeah. That sounds fun."
"Okay, well, I've got this here. Want me to teleport you home?"
Brief nodded meekly, and next thing she knew, she was blinking away the flash in her secret lair beneath her mansion, her cannon just beside her. Now away from Discord, her face hardened again. She tore off her mask and threw it to the floor.
"He's a monster," she whispered to herself. "If I don't stop him, who will?"
Corporate board meetings were terribly boring, but Brief endured them nonetheless, because it was her role as head of the company. Still, it was dull work, and she much preferred to beat up criminals and police and random civilians and children with her bare hooves. To compromise, she brought pleasure to work, and was currently fiddling with the harmony crystals she had stolen while the board of directors conversed. At the front of the room, one of the suits attempted to explain something with a graph and a pointer.
"And, uh, for this quarter, we continue to see a rise... due to, the, uh... the activities of... the... Mare-Do-Well vigilante..."
The ponies of the board all stared at her. Brief, at her seat, had her distinctive costume out on the table in front of her, and was currently pressing powderised crystals into the fabric, while a great metal spear lay propped up against her chair. She looked up at them and returned their stares with a bemused look.
"What?" she asked.
The board members looked away, and the suit giving the presentation cleared his throat.
"That is to say, the Mare-Do-Well vigilante's victims now account for over seventy percent of our customer base, and sales are projected to continue rising for this next quarter... This, uh, being the leading factor in Pain Industries' currently growing market share. As of yesterday, we have officially overtaken Blackspire as Equestria's number one pharmaceutical manufacturer."
Cheers went around the table, and even Brief stopped her work for a moment to join in a round of applause.
This was apparently the cue for the meeting to wind down, as the rest of the presentation was just summarising the extent of their success, and stating their plan going forward for reinvesting the profits. All things that Brief did not care about, because they did not involve punching things.
By the time the suits finally shuffled out of the room, she had finished chaos-proofing her costume, and so moved onto the spear. Brief Pain hummed happily to herself as she fitted a large chunk of crystal onto the shaft, and started whittling it down to make a blade.
Do you bleed, Discord? she thought, smiling. You will.
There was a knock on the open door. A young, bespectacled stallion poked his head in, and cleared his throat to gain her attention.
"Miss Pain? Your parents are here to see you."
Brief set down her tools, turned slowly, and narrowed her eyes at the stallion. He withered under her glare, shrinking away.
"Th-They brought banana bread, and s-said that they send their love."
Brief's eyes narrowed even further. The stallion started to sweat.
"M-Ma'am?"
"Put the banana bread in the fridge outside my office, and tell them that I'll be down in ten minutes."
He rushed off as fast as he could. Alone again, Brief Pain sighed.
"Stupid parents," she grumbled, sullenly tinkering with her staff. "I don't need parents. I am the night."
Cheese Sandwich's mansion was much nicer than Brief Pain's own, to her eternal frustration. It was an opulent marble palace, filled with flowing fountains and statues, with walls covered in fine art. Guests mingled about the room beneath a high ceiling, all in formal dress with their monocles and champagne. Some of them gathered out on the floor, while others were near the buffet tables, filling their plates.
Brief Pain and Discord navigated the party together, both carrying wine glasses with them. The latter wore his most garish orange suit, and carried a cane tipped with the mark of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos that he embodied, while the former had dressed in a long, flowing red evening gown that made her feel pretty, even if she would never admit it openly.
"This place is a snorefest," said Discord, sneering at the passers-by. "Where's the clown? I want to see the clown."
From out of a nearby crowd of upper-class snobs, Cheese Sandwich burst forth, his long stringy hair dyed a sickly green, and the clown make-up and scars on his face making him look positively hideous. He gave Discord a sinister grin.
"Captain Goodguy, my eternal nemesis!"
"Heeeeeey, Cheese!"
Discord held up a paw. Cheese Sandwich hit it with a hard hoof-bump, before turning to Brief.
"And Brief Pain, titan of industry! What wicked webs we will weave here tonight! Gods and ponies, standing side by side in the face of the future. Do you hear the drums in the distance? They march off to war. Bu-dum, bu-dum, bu-dum!"
Cheese pranced around them in circles, making Discord giggle at his antics. Then, after only a moment, he seemed to forget that they were there, and ran off into the party again after some other guest.
"That Cheese is quite a character," said Discord, still chuckling. "I almost don't even mind his regular attempts to destroy me."
"Why does he always talk like that?" Brief whispered.
Discord affected a straight face. "Dramatisis. It's a medical condition that causes one to speak entirely in trailer quotes."
"In what quotes?"
"Nevermind. You'll find out in ten years or so when ponies invent television, I suppose."
Brief looked around the party uneasily. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something. Or, rather, somepony. Somepony that she hadn't expected to be there.
"Listen, I'm going to get some fresh air. I'll be back in a minute."
Discord didn't have time to protest. Brief simply passed him her drink and left, heading through the back doors of the mansion and out onto the large garden patio. The party had spilled outside as well, as a few groups of fancy ponies stood around the patio, the gardens, and near Cheese's enormous pool. Several conversed together over their wine, but Brief only had eyes for one in particular, leaning against a wall all alone.
She headed across the patio and walked up to the mare in question, a grey earth pony with a light purple mane. She gave Brief a blank look as she approached.
"Maud Pie," said Brief.
"Yes?" said Maud, her voice flat and emotionless.
"You're the costumed hero they call Maudlin Mare."
"Yes, I am."
"I thought I saw you coming out here. What are you doing here?"
"I was invited."
Brief gave her a suspicious glower. "That's it? You're not here on any superhero business?"
"No. Should I be?"
"So... you're just... here? Just because?"
Maud shrugged.
"Well... okay then..." Brief said awkwardly. "Have a nice night, I guess."
"You too."
She turned and left.
That was pointless.
Brief crossed the patio area again, heading back inside towards the main party. Just as she came to the mansion's back doors, however, a pony in a suit stepped up to her and drew a shock baton. She didn't react in time, and was already on the ground before she could think to respond, electricity running through her bones. She lost consciousness an embarrassingly short time after.
Brief Pain awoke tied to a chair in an empty room, her pretty red dress now missing for some reason. A harsh spotlight glared down at her as Cheese Sandwich stepped into view, silhouetted by the light. He giggled and rubbed his hooves together.
"Ah, the bug falls into the spider's web... Sooner or later, in everypony's life, they face a reckoning for the crimes which they never thought would catch up to them. Everypony must face the angel of death. And if I am no god, but a mortal standing on solid earth, then it is only because ponies are angels whose wings were cut... except for pegasi... and alicorns... hmm..."
He tapped his chin.
"...This one got away from me a bit."
A flash lit up the room for a second, as Sir Discord teleported in, now clad in his full Captain Goodguy costume. He looked at Cheese in the way that a parent would look at their child trying to hide behind a chain-link fence.
"Okay, I got your message," he said, rolling his eyes. "What is it this time?"
"Your marefriend has been a very naughty girl. Lies upon lies. She likes to make everypony think she's on their side, but I know that it was her who tipped off the Mare-Do-Well vigilante as to what my convoy in Manehatan was transporting! And I know that she now has their contents! Well, it's time for some payback, I think. And as one door shuts, another must open, so I will use this opportunity I've been presented."
Cheese stepped behind Brief's chair, laughing with the kind of insanity usually only seen in mental patients.
"You have a choice, Captain Goodguy! Go and kill the Mare-Do-Well vigilante, and bring back what was stolen from me, or I will cut her throat, right here, right now! To save her, you must ruin yourself! Humble yourself before the whole world, and let them truly see the monster inside, the one that I always said was there! Let this Lord of Chaos come before ponykind on his knees in servitude, as it should be, so that everypony can see the true place of gods in this world of mortals!"
Discord looked to Brief, then to Cheese, then to Brief again, and then to Cheese again. He sighed.
"Wow. This plan is... impressively bad. You've really outdone me on this one. Bravo!"
With a snap of his claws, Discord decorated the room in flags and banners reading "WORST PLAN EVER." Streamers fell from the ceiling as Discord blew a noisemaker and clapped.
Cheese Sandwich, now wearing a party hat, growled and pulled a knife on Brief, pressing it against her throat. "I swear I'll do it, Goodguy! You think I won't?"
Discord shot Brief an apologetic look, then smirked at Cheese.
"Yeah, so, Cheese, one of the many reasons why that won't work is that Brief is the Mare-Do-Well vigilante."
"Hey! Don't tell villains my secret identity!"
Cheese's eyes widened, and he stared at Brief Pain.
"What?" he mouthed.
Cheese fell to the ground and curled up in a ball, sucking his hoof and rocking back and forth while whimpering. Brief and Discord both looked on with sympathy, privately lamenting the tragedy of the poor, deranged individual in front of them. But in that half a second of pitying, Cheese leapt back to his hooves, a manic grin on his face.
"Okay! That's fine! Plan B, then!" As if from nowhere, he pulled out a hoof-held radio, holding it up triumphantly before bringing it down and shouting into it. "Unleash the Potatoday!"
"Wait, what?" Discord and Brief said in unison.
Almost immediately, the floor began to rumble. Brief's eyes dilated. Then the wall behind her came crashing down, as a giant potato with a simple face and arms and legs like tree trunks punched its way inside. It roared as it tore the wall away, potato juice flying from its mouth in place of spittle.
Even Discord looked surprised for once.
The partygoers ran screaming from the mansion as it was reduced to rubble by the brawl. From within the depths of the collapsing building, Captain Goodguy and Potatoday burst out into the open air, flying across the grounds of Cheese's estate. Discord threw projectile spells at the potato monster as they flew, while Potatoday tore chunks of potato off of itself and flung them back at him with shocking accuracy. Every time one of them hit home, Discord would be knocked off-course and disoriented for a second before he could recover.
"Please, stop this!" Discord shouted at the monster as it pelted him with pieces of itself. "It's really quite annoying!"
Potatoday roared. It couldn't fly, but it could leap to a great height, and it kept jumping up to Discord and trying to grab him. The draconequus just barely kept ahead of the beast, teleporting away when need be and floating about aimlessly at all other times. Potatoday's assault was relentless; as quickly as it may have torn off chunks of its own flesh to throw at him, it could regrow them even faster. It was ridiculous. It was absurd. It was surely only possible with chaos magic. Whatever he had done, Cheese Sandwich had seemingly reverse-engineered some of Discord's own magic in order to create this potato monstrosity. How or why, Discord could only guess.
"Okay, that's enough!" he said, snarling. "This ends right nâ"
A particularly huge chunk of potato cut him off, striking Discord in the head. He fell and hit the roof of a building on the edges of Cheese's estate, winding himself.
"Oof! Okay, I won't lie; that stung a little."
In the ruins of the mansion, Brief Pain remained tied to her chair. The room was now missing a roof and all four walls, but somehow they had all survived. Cheese Sandwich still stood there, grinning like a child on Hearth's Warming Day as he watched the fight in the distance.
"It's glorious! A true hybrid of god and mortal, come to bring down the darker half of its parentage. For you see, chaos will always destroy itself in the end, and when chaos itself succumbs to entropy, only quiet order is left behind, and ponies shall inherit the ashes..."
"Would you please shut up?" said Brief. "You're giving me a headache."
Cheese turned around, beaming at her. He walked up to Brief and patted her on the head.
"I wouldn't expect you to understand what I'm talking about. I'm just too intelligent for you. I knew your secret identity all along."
"Uh-huh. Of course you did."
Without warning, Cheese furiously brandished his knife and stuck it in Brief's mouth, right between her teeth.
"Do you wanna know how I got these scars?!" he screamed at her.
Thankfully, a grey hoof struck him in the back of the head before he could make good on the threat.
Cheese slumped to the ground, his knife falling beside him, and Maud Pie stood over his fallen body. She stared down at him dispassionately, and then turned to Brief, giving her a similarly blank look before moving in.
"Wow, thanks, Maud," said Brief as Maud untied her.
"Don't mention it."
"It sure was lucky that you were randomly here for no reason to help."
"Yes, it was."
"So, uh... can you hold off the potato monster with Discord? I need to go get my Mare-Do-Well costume."
Maud blinked.
"...Oh yeah, right," said Brief, slapping her head. "Not supposed to reveal my secret identity."
The battle had long since left Cheese's estate and moved into the city. Potatoday kicked Discord straight through a building, smashing him through multiple walls. Discord landed in the street on the other side and collapsed in a heap, civilians fleeing in terror as they saw him. Those who didn't think to run, Discord teleported away to safety with a quick snap, even despite his bad headache and disorientation. He stood up and groaned, rubbing his forehead as a chunk of potato ran down his face.
"Nyrrghhh... Too long since I actually had a fight... Gotten rusty... Can taste blood in my mouth... It's tangier than I remember..."
Another chunk of potato came flying through the building and struck Discord in the head at the speed of a moving train, knocking him back to the ground. Any other being would have snapped their neck instantly under such force. As it was, Discord just sat up again and spat out a tooth and a glob of rainbow-coloured fluid.
Potatoday emerged from the hole it had made in the building, and came rushing towards him again.
"Can you please stop?"
But just before it reached him, out of nowhere, Maud Pie dropped from the sky and slammed down on top of Potatoday. With a pair of stone gauntlets on her forehooves, she hammered it with astounding force. Pieces of potato splattered over the stone plate armour covering her knees and midsection, as well as the metal roundshield strapped around her left foreleg. With no outward display of emotion, she effortlessly pummelled Potatoday again and again, reducing the monster to mulch in mere seconds.
Potatoday fell to the ground, and Maud leapt off his lifeless corpse. She casually looked aside to Discord, who stared at her with open-mouthed shock.
"Maudlin Mare!" he said, breaking into a smile. "Thanks for the last-minute save! Your unexpected presence has made this painful experience slightly less painful."
Maud simply nodded.
But suddenly, Potatoday was up again, now completely regenerated. With a flick of its potato-y wrist, it smacked Maud out of the way, launching her across the city. Discord watched as she vanished over the horizon, and gave a disappointed sigh.
"Damn it, she was cool," he mumbled, sullenly crossing his arms and staring at the ground.
"But I'm cooler!"
From out of the shadows, Mare-Do-Well appeared, swooping down with her cape fluttering behind her in a way that was totally super badass.
Discord looked taken aback.
"Brief, what are you doing?" he shouted. "You can't fight this thing! It's using chaos magic to heal itself! You're just going to embarrass us both!"
"As it happens, I have something for chaos magic!" Brief boasted.
She drew her weapon, a great metal spear tipped with a glowing white crystal head. There was something about the weapon that was entrancing. Discord found himself captivated by the mere sight of it. Potatoday must have sensed it too, because it roared again and charged straight at Mare-Do-Well.
Discord felt his heart seize in his throat. For a minute, he thought Brief was doomed.
Then she struck, and her spear hit home. It pierced the potato monster's skin, cutting all the way to its heart. It cried out, flailing and struggling as it leaned over her, but Mare-Do-Well flared her wings and flew to drive the spear further in. With a pained moan, the monster thrashed even more wildly, but it soon lost its energy and slumped forward, eyes drooping. Brief let go of the spear and dodged out of the way as it collapsed in the street, the weapon driving through its body and sticking out its back blade-first.
Discord's jaw dropped. He slowly approached the beast, and poked it with a claw, blinking when it failed to respond or heal its wounds. Brief nonchalantly climbed atop the corpse and pulled her spear out, twirling it in the air as she inspected it.
"You... neutralised its chaos magic by harmonising it!" Discord held his forehead and laughed. "Wow! Really, bravo! I mean, I could've handled it myself, but still, props where they're due. That was seriously impressive."
He looked up to Brief, eyes wide and full of excitement.
"How did you do that? What's in that spear? Where did you get it?" Then he looked at the spear more closely, and his smile slowly slipped away as he recognised the shard of Crystal Heart. "Heeeeeey... wait a minute..."
Brief Pain leapt off Potatoday's body with a warcry, and planted the spear in Discord's chest, driving him to the ground.
"Agh!" he yelped.
Discord looked down at the crystal that was currently impaling him, and felt a sudden weakness overcome him. The chaos magic in his body, once so raw and primal, started to soften into useless harmonic sludge. Then it began to desert him, rejected by his very soul and his own fundamental incompatibility with harmony. The crystal was like a poison, and it both burned and paralysed him at once while it sapped his strength.
He sucked in a deep breath, and struggled to reach up to the starry sky. Brief stood over him, obscuring his view with her mask. She pulled off Mare-Do-Well's face to glare at him with her own eyes, shimmering yellow and coldly predatory.
"W-Why?" Discord wheezed.
"You know why!" Brief shouted, pressing on his chest with a hoof. "Don't pretend you don't know why!"
Discord's eyes widened. "The radio interview? Don't tell me this is about the radio interview?"
Brief Pain gave him a furious look, and Discord started to laugh. Her face went red.
"Stop laughing! It's serious! I am the night! Stop making ponies not fear me on public airwaves!"
Still he kept laughing.
"I mean it, Discord! Apologise right now and never do it again, or I swear I will let you bleed to death here!"
"Okay! Okay!" said Discord, between bouts of hysterical laughter. "I'm s-sorry! Hahaha!"
Brief's glare melted away, replaced by a smug, satisfied grin.
"Thank you."
She grabbed the spear and tore it out of his chest. Discord didn't react to the pain at all, and just resumed laughing. No longer paralysed, he started rolling around on the ground and holding his belly while the wound healed itself. His laughter was more than a little infectious. Brief tried to control herself, but started to chuckle as well. Soon they were both doubled over in the street, laughing uproariously like a couple of maniacs.
There were tears in their eyes by the time they stopped laughing. Both Discord and Brief Pain lay on their backs, and looked aside at each other. Discord's eyes ran over Brief's costume, and he reached out to grab the mare by the back of her head. She smiled and blushed as he pulled her closer.
"I've got to admit, that spear was a pretty good idea," said Discord, looking at her with a half-lidded expression. "You really got me."
Brief Pain laughed nervously. "Thanks."
"C'mere."
Discord pulled her on top of him, and police sirens sounded in the distance as the two costumed heroes started making out in the street.