“Mars was…like me.” Swarm began, tracing impossible little patterns in the air with his finger. “I found him in one of my thousands of excursions into one of the millions of Earths that exist, and realized instantly what he was destined to become. Like me, he was going to be powerful.”

Celestia and Luna listened as he sighed and continued, Discord hovering nearby atop another chocolate milk cloud. “My birth was difficult, and let us leave it at that. Things happened which I had no control over, but was still responsible for. Terrible things. In the centuries since those times, I have come to terms with my role in those things, but when I saw Mars in his infancy, barely even beginning to become a fully sentient being, I realized I could save him. He didn’t have to suffer through what I did, or live with the horrendous burden I knew. He could become just as great as I was, I thought, and eventually join me and my siblings in our travels, a fully separate entity which…” he choked back a sob, “…which would…understand.”

Celestia and Luna nodded in understanding. Discord just continued watching the conversation from his cloud in as nonchalant a manner as possible. “I gave Mars a domain of his own, close to my home so I could…shape him, like a father with a child. Eventually, I came to realize my role and refer to him as ‘son.’ The first day he referred to me as his father was the happiest of my existence.”

“Oh, Swarm…” Celestia choked.

“Hold up, there,” Discord said, raising a paw. “You’re saying you raised that THING outside?”

Swarm could only nod, his hand clenched firmly over his own mouth to stifle a cry of pain.

“Well bloody hell, what happened there?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Swarm screamed, his voice booming into the nether as the other beings leapt back in surprise. “I don’t know, okay? I thought I was giving him a well-rounded formation! I thought I was raising him to be a fully functional, sentient being, one which could join me in my travels and…and…”

He fell to his knees, bawling for a future which now would never exist. Celestia offered her hoof, barely choking back her own tears as Swarm cried in pure, absolute emotional agony. Luna sniffled, her hoof drifting towards Discord’s side, only to find that he had vanished. Looking around in confusion, she only found him again when he blinked back into existence by Swarm’s head. The man looked up at the Lord of Chaos as he cradled his face in his talons, just before his bear-paw slapped across it with a dull thud. “Discord!” Celestia screamed, only to be ignored.

“GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, MAN!” Discord bellowed at the man now lying stunned on the ground. “We’ve got the fate of an entire planet lying in our hands! You’re in pain, and that’s unfortunate, but right now there are a whole ton of ponies and a few humans whose lives depend on us holding off that horde back there,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the tiny rift in space they had slipped through, now rippling with the force of a massive blow from the other side. “We can’t have you going all emotional now! Don’t you realize what’s at stake!?”

He dragged Swarm to his feet and pointed at the sisters. “Those two have an entire kingdom depending on them, with literally millions of subjects who will suffer if we fall.” He twisted the man to face himself, “I face a bleak future living under the thumb of some big, evil, fascist Empire which crushes all hope for glorious, wonderful chaos! And you,” he slammed his fist against the dark matter wall Swarm had been leaning against, allowing it to ripple and shimmer until its surface bent itself into a mirror, reflecting them. “I’m sure you have your own noble and obnoxiously heroic reasons for fighting. Don’t you see!?”

He twisted Swarm around and slammed him against the wall, gripping him by the shoulders. “Everything we love, everything we exist for, is on the line right now! And you just want to sit there and feel sorry for yourself!?”

The other three beings stared at the Lord of Chaos in stunned silence. Swarm’s eyes darted around, as if trying to process something. Then, after a few seconds, a cool expression crossed his face while a certain spark reentered his eyes. Discord smiled at it as Swarm brushed his hands aside, straightening out the wrinkles that had been left in his suit.

“You have my thanks, chaotic one.” Swarm said plainly.

“Believe me when I say it was all my pleasure.” Discord replied while the princesses daintily stepped forward.

“So, what’s the plan?” Celestia asked, still a bit put-off by Discord’s outburst.

“Right, what have we got?” Swarm paced back and forth, stroking his chin. “Problem: we have a whole host of enemies with…an incredibly powerful being…” his voice shook ever-so-slightly as he talked, but quickly regained itself. “…Supporting them. We cannot hold here for long, and even if we could, it would only be a matter of time before the enemy found a way around the portal-redirection Ms. Hazarika has performed, and diverted to attack Equestria.”

“Yeah, too bad we can’t just pull that stunt again and redirect them to the heart of a sun or something, right?” Discord grumbled.

Swarm’s eyes lit up. “Actually, we can.”

“What.” Discord, Luna, and Celestia said.

“But not to a sun,” Swarm whipped out his cell phone and dialed furiously. The moment he pressed the speaker to his ear, a high-pitched voice steeped in a Punjabi accent shrieked at him: “WHERE IN THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!? Do you realize how concerned I was!? How…”

“Nasreen, darling, I’m sorry,” Swarm explained. “But we are in a bit of a pickle right now and I need you to tell me: can you open up a portal from where we are standing?”

“Ugh…hold on…” they all waited and listened tensely as the hum of a quadrillion calculations being made clicked over the line. “Okay, I’ve located you and…yes, a portal should be no trouble whatsoever.”

“Okay, good, now, I need this to be a huge portal! Something an entire army could just rush right through without even thinking, just rocket right on through. Can you do that?”

“Um…” more calculations, more tense moments. “Yes, we’ve barely the energy left for it, but it is possible.”

“Great, I’m going to need you to give us that portal when and where we need it in a second, okay? Okay, love you, bye.”

“Wait! Chen, don’t you dare hang…” he cut her off by flipping the phone shut and slamming it back into its barely-existent pocket, just as Luna’s eyes lit up.

“We thinkest that we have begun to understand!” She said.

“You mean we’re actually going to drop them into the heart of the sun!?” Discord gasped.

“Too far,” Swarm said, still pacing. “We’ve expended too much energy for a portal that size to be opened that far off from the rest of the portals. It has to be Equestria, specifically somewhere in the Everfree forest, near where the enemy has already opened a few.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Luna sighed. “Now, thy enemy army will have the whole forest from whence to attack Equestria!”

“Unless we ensure they land right in the heart of the best-defended area in the forest,” producing a map from the folds of his outfit, he slammed his finger down on a tiny village. “There.”

“Coltton?” Celestia said. “Why there? It’s just a tiny farming community.”

“Ah, but not just ‘a’ farming community,” his finger pointed at another spot. “It’s the only open area besides this field, where the Americans your highness has so graciously allowed into her lands have set up their base.” Celestia couldn’t help but blush at his compliment.

“My word, it’s on a perfect flanking path with that field,” Discord said. “If we drop the army there, they could absolutely overrun your little human friends!”

“But they know that,” Swarm replied. “The Americans know this is their weak point, and so…”

“This is where they would have the bulk of their defenses!” Luna gushed. “The enemy army runs through our portal and slams right against the most heavily-defended position in Equestria!”

“Then, like a tidal wave against a sheer rock face,” the man said coolly, leaning back. “They are scattered by the sheer force slammed back against them, totally obliterating themselves with their own momentum.”

“Swarm, that’s brilliant!”

“That is a lot of faith you are placing in the strategic abilities of a mere human,” Discord said skeptically. “Literally everything hinges on whether or not this human commander has seen what you have.”

Swarm crossed his arms stubbornly. “My brother trusted this human with the defense of Equestria, so I believe we can have plenty of faith in his abilities.”

“Perhaps, there is still one catch though,” the Lord of Chaos sighed. “The army out there isn’t just going to run headlong into a portal because we ask them to. They need a reason.”

“Like something they wish to destroy?” Luna asked, scratching at her chin with the edge of her glass slipper. “Something which could act as bait, like some huge, unknown power source, or…”

“Or one of us,” Celestia said.

The four beings eyed each other warily, knowing that just a few yards away, the seal over the tear in time-space protecting their little bubble was showing the first signs of buckling.