Richard strode into the cobblestone street. All around him, technicolor ponies in extravagant apparel gaped at  the strange creatures in their midst. Then the screaming started. Upon catching sight of Richard’s blood and gore stained robe, the high-class ponies burst into hysterics, sprinting away from the monsters. Richard winced. That was really high pitched screaming. He made a pony’s head spontaneously combust. He sighed. Much better. Then the screaming got louder. He sighed, making his hands burst into flames. Killing was so satisfying, but killing ponies? Then again, they were very annoying.

        Richard charged into a group of ponies, ready to kill everything within arms reach. He grabbed a pony’s face and ripped the skin from its head, then ripped the the bloody skull from the body to make it into a hat. Blood splattered on the cobblestone, staining the gray stone red. , Lovingly admiring the skull as he placed it on his head, Richard attacked another group of ponies. He gouged out another pony’s eyes and set them on fire. He then proceeded to throw them at another pony, making the pony burst into flames. He beheaded another and tossed it to another pony, calling,” Here! Catch!”

Kelly just sat on the curb, shaking his head. Soomba, on the other hand, joined in Richard’s antics, pouncing on a pony and ripping out it’s throat.

        “STOP, CRIMINAL SCUM!” Richard looked up from the skull he was decorating, saw ponies in armor wielding spears, and frowned.

“But it’s fun! Look! I even made you a hat!,” replied Richard happily, holding up the pony skull, now decorated with dandelions and intestines.

“BY THE ORDER OF HER MAJESTY, PRINCESS CELESTIA, YOU ARE HEREBY UNDER ARREST FOR MURDER!”

“Yeah, about that,” said Richard, putting the skull hat on top the guard,” It’s not murder if I’m having fun.” A bit of intestines flopped down in front of the guard’s eye.

“Oh, just let ‘em take us to their majesty, will ya?” Kelly called. “It’ll be a lot easier than just killing all of them,” he continued as he got up from the curb.

        “But a whole lot less fun,” admitted Richard.

“Alright boys, take us to your leader,” Kelly said cooley to the guards. “We’re obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we would appreciate being able to go home.”

        “Fine,” Richard and the guard said in unison.

        “Maybe I could kill just one?” asked Richard suddenly in an excited manner. At the glares from his companions, Richard said,” What? It’s a legitimate question.”

_____________________________________________________________________________

After 23 minutes of being escorted by the guards, Richard, Kelly, and Soomba arrived at the castle. Richard had quickly established that he was not to be touched, demonstrating his marvelous ability to turn a pony into ash. The guards put as much distance as they could after that. Kelly trudged next to Soomba, whom he kept having to convince that the ponies were not, in fact, chew toys.

        The party stopped in front of a pair of massive oak doors.

“Shall we go in?” asked the lead guard.

“I’d rather not, you see,” Richard explained.

“Yes, lead us on in,” declared Kelly with authority. Soomba just growled at a guard that got too close. The guard quickly rectified his mistake.

        The ponies opened the gate revealing a grand...hallway.

        “That was anticlimactic,” pointed out Richard, before marching into the hallway, Kelly and Soomba in tow.

        They marched through the white marble hallways, Richard whistling a merry tune.

        They arrived at another set of massive oak doors, which opened to reveal... a tall, white pony with wings and a horn.

        “That was also very anticlimactic,” commented Richard, before striding into the throne room. He strode over to Celestia as the guards closed the door behind the trio, looked her in the eyes, then turned back to Kelly.

        “Can we keep it?” Kelly just shook his head before addressing what he assumed to be the ruling monarch.

        “Uh, Queen-”

        “Princess is fine,” interrupted Celestia, nodding apologetically.

        “Uh...” Kelly was dumbfounded. He was sure that this was the ruler, but it appeared she was just a princess.

        “Could we, perhaps, talk to the queen?” Kelly asked hopefully. When Celestia started laughing, he turned to Richard and just shrugged. Richard had taken his skull hat back, and was currently in the process of adjusting the intestines such that it looked like hair.

        “There are no queens here,” explained Celestia after she stopped laughing.

        “Me and my sister are the diarchs of Equestria.”

        “Oh,” Richard and Kelly said in unison.

        Richard turned to Kelly.

        “I don’t want it anymore.”

        Kelly facepalmed. Leave it to Richard to declare that one of the rulers wasn’t fit to be his pet.

        Celestia just chuckled.

        “I’m afraid that even if you wanted to make me into a pet, warlock, you wouldn’t be able to.” Before Kelly could ask how Celestia had known Richard was a warlock, the door was slammed open revealing a white unicorn with a blue mane, fully clad in armor.

        “Your majesty, what in Equestria are you doing! You know that these monsters are guilty of murder!” He gestured angrily at the trio, eliciting a happy wave from Richard.

“It’s not murder if I’m having fun!” he said happily.

        Celestia raised an eyebrow at Richard’s casual statement, then turned back the white unicorn.

        “Shining Armor, surely you cannot believe that I’m in any danger?” she asked with mock horror. Shining stiffened.

        “It’s my royal duty to make sure my princesses are safe. And taking into account these things’-”

        “Humans,and the cat’s a black panther” interrupted Kelly.

        Shining’s eyes narrowed.

        “Regardless...” he said through gritted teeth.

“These...humans...killed hundreds of guards and citizens in cold blood!”

“I think it was more along the lines of thirty,” said Kelly casually.

“I usually kill two thousand. It’s been a bad day,” explained Richard.

Shining Armor gaped in horror at the warlock. Celestia simply nodded in understanding.

        “I feel sorry for you. Not being able to fill your daily quota of mindless slaughter...” Celestia shook her head.

        “What a tragedy.”

        Shining Armor gaped in even more horror at the Princess.

        “Surely you can’t mean that...”

“Of course not. Did you actually think I didn’t care about the lives lost at the warlock’s hands?”

        “Technically, Soomba helped,” pointed out Richard, before returning his full attention to the decoration of his marvelous hat. Needs a bit more...fwoosh...thought Richard as he made the hat burst into flames. His companions ignored him, instead listening to Trolles-er, Celestia’s conversation with the Captain of the Guard.

“I’ve simply decided to meet him in person as to get a better judgement of his character.”

 “But Princess, surely the law requires that-”

        “You of all ponies know that our laws forbid the execution of any creature, regardless of their actions.”

        “But Princess-”

        “That doesn’t mean his actions will go unpunished,” Celestia declared as her horn was engulfed in a glowing, yellow aura. As was Richard.

        Richard, who didn’t like the light show one bit, decided that the easiest way out was to “fwoosh” the big, white pony. He pointed a finger at the pony and waited for his lightshow. And waited. And waited. He turned to Kelly.

        “I think my fwoosh is broken,” Richard pouted. Then he perked up. His fwoosh, though his favorite spell, was not the only one at his disposal.

        None of them worked. He’d even tried to attack the pony with a physical attack, to no avail. Whenever he got close, he would get repelled by...something. It even happened when he tried with other ponies, so it wasn’t just a forcefield.

“Are you having any problems, warlock?” Celestia asked calmly.

        “No, no, I...Yes. Please stop what you are doing so I can kill everything in the room. Except for Soomba. I need him.”

        “Hey, you need me too!” exclaimed Kelly.

        “Oh, and him. I’ll keep him alive,” Richard said, jerking a thumb at Kelly.

        “And what about me?” said a voice behind Richard, causing him to wheel around. Behind him stood...something. It appeared to be one of his long forgotten projects, in which he had tried to mix the body parts of hundreds of different beings into a single body. This one, however, didn’t appear to speak Korean.

        “No, you appear to be an old project of mine, and I’ve killed all my projects that failed, so therefore you must die.”

        “Oh, I’m not one of your projects. I’m Discord, the resident draconequus and Lord of Chaos. A pleasure to meet you.” Discord extended a clawed hand, which Richard shook firmly.

        “On second thought, I like you. I’m Lord Richard Ashendale, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, First Order of the Thirteen Hells, Emperor of the Black, Master of the Bones, and mayor of a little town up the coast. It’s a really nice place to visit during the summer,” Richard said nonchalantly, procuring a map displaying his village from his tunic and showing it to Discord.

        Celestia coughed politely to acquire Richard and Discord’s attention to no avail.

        “Lord Richard Ashendale?” she asked politely. He ignored her, instead explaining to Discord how his village was populated by the undead.

        Celestia sighed heavily, and after dismissing Shining Armor, materialized two buckets of cold water above her target audience. As she tilted the buckets, Discord grabbed Kelly and raised him above his head, as Richard did the same with Soomba. Discord and Richard discarded their soggy meat-shields and continued to to converse of the benefits of having an undead army at one’s disposal.

        “WARLOCK!” shouted Celestia, exasperated.

        “Yes? What do you want? Don't you know its quite rude to interrupt people’s conversations?”

        “I have decided that you are to be sent to Ponyville to learn about the Magic of Friendship,” declared Celestia.

        Richard stood thoughtfully, then said,” ...Um, that sounds excessively childish. So, how about no?”

        He was blinded by a flash of yellow light. After a feeling a being squeezed through a giant worms digestive tract, the light faded. Richard blinked away the spots, and looked around. He was on a train, it appeared, sitting across from Kelly and Soomba. Another flash of light and Discord appeared next to them.

“You seem like a swell bunch, so I think I’ll be joining you.”

        “That’s nice,” said Richard, annoyed that he had been teleported onto a train against his will.

“At least that white pony’s gone now. I can use my powers again, silly pony.”

        He pointed a finger at a white pony with with a purple mane, intent on causing it to collapse into a steaming pile of ash. Instead, it’s mane caught fire, causing it to run out of the train car, screaming about a ruined mane style.

        Richard stared at his hands and sighed.

“I really don’t like that white pony.”

        “Which one?” asked Discord nonchalantly.

“All of the ones in authority ,” replied Richard sourly.  

“So, Discord, what made you join us?”Kelly asked curiously.

        “I like messing with Celestia. After all, if it was up to her, Richard wouldn’t be able to do any spells.”

“What do you mean?” Kelly and Richard asked in unison.

        “Well, Celestia has a big thing against killing, so she cast a spell preventing Richard from killing or causing harm to her precious ponies. I...tweaked the spell, so that harm could still be done, but death is still a big no-no. Allow me to explain.” He jerked a thumb at the door through  which the white pony had run.

        “You made Rarity’s hair burst into flame, which to most would be considered an improvement, but to her it was a heinous crime. Before you ask who she is, she’s one the ponies you’ll have to learn the magic of friendship from.”

        “Let’s hope this whole scenario boils over before we get to Ponyville,” said Kelly, petting Soomba absentmindedly.

        “Her hair wasn’t boiling, it was burning,” pointed out Richard.

        “How did you not catch that?”

        Discord put a reassuring hand on Richard’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry. I don’t believe idiocy is contagious.”

        Kelly’s eyes narrowed, then he shrugged. He’d been called stupid before.

        “By idiot, are you referring to the medical or social definition of the term?” he asked nonchalantly.

        “Medical,” replied Discord in an even tone. Kelly frowned. This wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting. Being dumbfounded? Yes. Stammering? Yes. But a logical answer? This Discord... was gonna be an interesting fella to be around.

        The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, Richard explaining to Discord about his adventures and his various acquaintances, and Discord explaining to Richard and Kelly about the different races and history of Equestria.

        The train shuddered to a stop at the Ponyville Station.

        “Well, shall we go on?” asked kelly to his companions.

        Discord just shrugged and said, “Lets get this over with.”