Author's Notes:

The Usual Disclaimer:

The following is a work of parody, and is protected as Fair Use under section 17 U.S. Code § 107 of US Copyright Law. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all affiliated characters are property of Hasbro Inc.

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FSDJGH!

CHAPTER 54

The room was nice.

Chrysalis frowned and tried to repress the feeling of gratitude welling up inside her, and her frown turned into a scowl when she failed.

Princess Celestia had almost all the power in this situation, and while Chrysalis had taken steps to ensure her children were somewhat protected, her entire plan still hinged entirely on her enemy being nice.

Ponies could be nice, indeed it seemed to be the default setting for the species aside from a fraction of the population. But Changelings had learned the hard way that being nice to others outside of the Hive only made it more likely you’d become a meal for something else, yet the evidence was clear: Ponies being nice had made them a real power in the world.

Diplomats, merchants, bankers, even just tourists, everywhere Ponies went, they were friendly, they were accepting, they were nice. It made others drop their guard, even reciprocate, and as much as it galled the Changeling Queen to admit, Princess Celestia’s tactics had made her people a force to be reckoned with.

Ponies had become a world-power, possibly the greatest one, by being nice.

If she didn’t already have a tube down her throat, that infernal scarecrow of a doctor probing and prodding her with three Magi scanning her insides as he did so and two terrified-looking servants fluffing her pillows right at that very second, Chrysalis would have probably thrown a massive hissy-fit at the cosmic unfairness of it all.

Strange comfort it was, however, to have the implacable Candy Apple seated next to her head, the thick-set old Mare’s face set into an expression that promised unspeakable suffering to the first being in the room, Pony or otherwise, that caused a scene, the two black twins nestled into the crook of Candy’s thick limb, while the white male stood next to Chrysalis’s head, looking intently at the doctor and mimicking Bedside Manner’s movements, poking his mother’s cheek in time to the doctor’s palpitation, tongue clenched out the side of his mouth as the little one, already far from agile on his hooves, struggled to stay upright on just three hooves.

“Thow muth thungah whill thith thake?” Chrysalis mumbled around the tube, frowning at how her words sounds like the rambling of a common drunk, and grunted as Little White finally gave in to gravity and tumbled forwards, but not before planting a tiny hoof into the side of her muzzle on the way down.

“Not too much longer, your Highness. We’re just … there! You see, that mass of bruising right there?” Bedside said again before bursting into an excited jig of all things, pointing his hoof to a point near Chrysalis’s haunch, and the three Magi all nodded eagerly. “We’re just mapping the worst injuries you’re suffering for now, and tomorrow we should be able to begin planning exactly how we’re be treating them.”

“Thu’wiffic.” The Changeling Queen grunted unhappily, fighting down the urge to rip the tube from her mouth and flog the skinny doctor-pony with it just on principle. Supposedly, the tube contained a concoction made from simple antibiotics and as much processed love as the Hive could spare, but just having it jammed down into her stomach to ‘bypass damaged sub-systems in your convertens organum amoris’, according to that infernal doctor, made her feel both vulnerable and bloated.

That she had multiple organs that served no useful function, wasteful biomass that appeared to be some sort of left-overs or existed to fulfil non-existant biological functions was news to Chrysalis, and news she did not like. Certainly, the Empress had deemed her latest brood ‘deficient’ and sought to purge the Changelings, hence her species arrival in Equestria, but for Chrysalis, a first-generation Queen, to be so aberrant inside? The thought that her vessel was truly imperfect, perhaps even fatally so, chilled Chrysalis’s blood as not even being flung out of Canterlot Castle by the Princess of Buffets and Shining Studmuffin had done so. Not even Twilight dropping an entire castle ontop of her had terrified Chrysalis so much as the knowledge that her body was not divine perfection.

This does nothing for our cause, and I refuse to lay here and be prodded for nothing! Hive, report: Any changes in your situations?

Drone Prime reporting. We are still not permitted to turn our chambers into a suitable hive, although the Drone-Prime of Queen Celestia is willing to allow us to change the coloured paper on the walls if you wish. Drone-Prime of Hive Celestia was less than enthused when asked if we could also remove the furniture and make proper cocoons to sleep in.

Scout Prime here, my Queen. Situation remains the same, although we have managed to convince the Guard Prime of the Ponies that the Kattians will receive better care under our hooves than theirs. She appears to be allergic to them, which not only helped us win that dispute, but we may be able to use to our advantage should we need to escape from this Hive.

The fact that, despite intense coaching from their Queen, every Drone, Scout and Guard still tried to refer to the Ponies around them as though they were another Changeling Hive worried Chrysalis. Injured as she was, it was … difficult to provide proper instruction to her Changelings through the stored memories within the Hive-Mind, and with the distractions before her, the Hive was slipping back into what each individual Changeling was most comfortable with, and that could cause misunderstandings with the Ponies …

Scout-Drone reporting from the end of the hallway, My Queen. Guard-Drone ‘Dappled’ appears to be fine, but apparently accidentally taking his reproductive organs into my mouth has terrified him and he will not come near me without an escort. I offered to allow him to do the same if it would make him feel at ease, and the other Guard-Drones of Hive Celestia apparently found this very amusing and are asking if Guard-Drone ‘Dappled’ is interested in something called ‘formicophilia’. This appears to distress him greatly, and my efforts to calm him only seem to make his distress greater.

Thankfully, Bedside Manner and the Magi took the fit of ‘coughing’ that overcame Chrysalis as simply a symptom of her injuries, and not the side-effects of repressing the overwhelming desire to explode with hysterical laughter.

Guard Prime here. I am still being challenged to ‘hoof wrestle’ matches due to the blood-pact between yourself and Queen Celestia precludes actual fighting. I appear to have acquired a substantial amount of small, golden disks for winning, and their loss appears to have a demoralizing effect on these Guard-Drones of Hive Celestia. Are you aware of the significance of these ‘bits’ the Guard-Drones are giving me when I beat them in this challenge they are so fond of?

Keep close watch on the Ponies and ensure our needs are met, but again, do nothing that might jeopardize our alliance with them at this time. Queen Celestia believes a ‘trial’ before her Drones will help prove we mean them no threat, and thus they will be more receptive to the news we bring. If we make the Pony-Drones afraid of us, our chances to rally an army from their Hives dwindle to nearly impossible. Queen Chrysalis ordered the Hive as a group, and then turned her mental ‘attention’ to the individuals whom were most likely to come into contact with the Ponies, trying desperately to keep a grin from her face as she sorted through the memories from said Changelings and keeping her own memories of Ponies from seeping into the Hive-Mind.

She had spent decades amongst Ponies, after all, and most of the Drones who had survived their explosive exodus from Canterlot itself were far too young to either have lived during those years in Equestria and would be filtering their responses through the stored memories and life-experiences of their older brothers and sisters embedded in the Hive-Mind itself without proper context and come across as either addled or just thick, or were not mentally matured enough to grasp the social or cultural weight of those memories and would likely make the situation worse. Probably in hilarious fashion, but still, worse.

Still, at least the Hive’s comfort with the terminology they were using would make complex commands to the less-experienced Drones a little easier on her part, so Chrysalis played alone without reprimanding them for failing.

Guard Prime, keep half of the bits, they may be useful to us later, but return the other half to the Guard-Drones of Hive Celestia. This will make them consider you, and by association the rest of our Hive, in a positive light. Continue to ‘hoof wrestle’, but pretend to lose to individuals who show themselves to be talkative and friendly. We may use them as a source of information, or leverage if things go sour during the trial.

I hear and obey, my Queen.

Drone Prime, you are to do nothing to alter the rooms for now, but try to impress upon the Drone Prime of Hive Celestia that cocoons make our Drones more comfortable than beds. Explain to the Drone Prime of Hive Celestia that we will allow their Magi … errr … Spell-Drones to monitor our sleeping Hive-members if that will ease their fears.

I hear and obey, my Queen, but the Drone Prime of Hive Celestia seems concerned about our Drones staining the fluffy substance coating the floor with our resin. Is this fluffy substance some form of fungus or lichen they cultivate for food?

… It is a luxury item intended to make the room more comfortable. The Ponies call it ‘carpet’.

… My Queen, when I asked the Drone Prime if I could eat her carpet, she turned bright red and fled the room. Is that a normal Pony reaction?

Bedside Manner became very concerned for his unusual patient as she suffered another coughing-fit, as well as began hammering the soft mattress with a hoof, tears squeezing out the corners of her eyes. Little White simply sensed his mother’s mirth and hugged her head, radiating a simple delight back at her that snapped Chrysalis out of her ‘fit’.

By the Spawning Pit, when the Drone Prime of Hive Celestia returns, apologise and explain you thought the floor coverings were a form of dried, edible food the Ponies kept around for times of scarcity. She probably believes you just asked if you could perform oral sex on her!

… Forgive my ignorance, but how is eating a floor-covering representative of sexual acts?

If you can, access the Hive-Mind and find the memories of the Infiltrator Caste, and narrow your search to memories pertaining to ‘red lights’, ‘Mares’ and ‘lesbians’. You will find your answers there, Drone Prime.

… I do not understand, but I obey, my Queen.

Well, before anything else goes wrong, Scout Prime, remind the Ponies that the Kattians will require certain amenities. And while we’re here, also request a number of brushes and food for our furry comapnions, as well as several dozen large, shallow tubs, filled with a type of material the Ponies will call ‘kitty litter’. It will make close-quarter living with the Kattians far more pleasant for all parties involved.

My Queen, we will also need a large supply of dried fish to feed the Kattians. Unlike Ponies, they are carnivorous and will quickly flee if not able to eat, or worse still, may attempt to take down and kill either a Changeling or Pony to feed themselves.

Worry not, Scout Prime. Ponies of Hive Celestia regularly entertain ambassadors from the other races, including fully-carnivorous ones. There are also Thestrals, a kind of Pony who thrive during the night, whose diet is omnivorous. Access to a source of meat for the Kattians will not be an issue, so long as you point it out to the Drones of Hive Celestia.

It shall be done, my Queen.

And now for you, Drone-Scout. Chrysalis’s mouth twitched into a quickly-suppressed smile as she narrowed her connection down to ‘Scout’ in the Hive Mind, a private two-way connection as she ran the young Changeling through Pony social-customs between genders, and what might be expected of her.

The Ponies had no idea how powerful this ‘Dappled Light’ could be. While not capable of levelling buildings or conjuring devastating arcane power, an empath capable of instilling such apathy and disinterest in those around them was a rare, valuable prize, and sadly now Princess Celestia was all-too aware of his existence which precluded Chrysalis monopolizing him for her own needs.

Still, empathic abilities were often passed down through a bloodline, and even if this alliance with the Ponies lasted, Chrysalis fully intended to keep building strengths into her Hive until they truly were ‘perfect’. If Scout could absorb the essence of Dappled, then Chrysalis could extract it from the Changeling at a later point in time and apply the unique traits to the store of genetic potential she had already harvested and stored within her from Shining Armor, a powerful physical specimen in addition to being a potent Unicorn, as well as the scores of other Ponies from the other Tribes she had used to improve her Hive’s biological potential over the years.

I … my Queen, I am not adverse to this mission, but from the memories you have asked me to access, is not such actions normally undertaken between Ponies who possess strong feelings towards one another? Would doing this for any other reason possibly cause offence to Guard-Drone Dappled?

And are you telling me the feelings of concern and anger you felt on the train when Guard-Drone Glimmer started to praise Guard-Drone Dappled meant nothing?

… My emotions are in flux. I do not know how to answer.

I am not asking you to kill the Pony, Scout, merely convince him to mount you and leave his essence inside you. I will extract it and add it to my stores, and if you decide to continue receiving his essence, so long as you duties to the Hive are not compromised, I will not take issue with it. The Hive is well aware I quite enjoyed harvesting Guard-Prime Shining Armor, and I suspect you will receive similar enjoyment harvesting Guard-Drone Dappled.

I do not understand why I feel this way about a Pony, my Queen. He is not of the Hive, but I feel drawn to him. Do you understand why I am acting so strangely?

Possibly because of his empathic nature, on some level his powers and our Hive-Mind have intersected and as the Changeling most often in contact with him, you are feeling the side-effects more strongly than the rest of the Hive. Possibly because my injuries have prevented me from properly filtering the Hive-Mind, so you and the other Changelings have been affected by the stored memories of the Changelings who came before you, and the Ponies whom we cocooned and whose memories we took to better infiltrate the Pony Hives. Chrysalis reached out through the Hive-Mind and gently ruffled Scout’s mind-glow, sending equal amounts of exasperation and affection to the confused, conflicted Changeling. Or maybe you’re just being young and foolish.

My apologies, my Queen, but none of those theories provide me with much comfort.

In such matters, my child, there generally aren’t any real answers. Just trust in the memories I have given you and try to understand he will be as nervous and confused as you are. Ponies are difficult, fractious, divided beings, but this Guard-Drone, Dappled, has a gift that makes him closer to us than most of his kind can ever get. Use this to bring him around to our side of things, and if you should keep him at your side in the process, well then, that is just a happy little bonus for you.

I wish to serve the Hive, but I … I do not wish to harm this Pony.

Then don’t. This Trial will take several weeks at the very least, plenty of time for you to explore the depth of whatever connection you can make with him. If you believe he can join our Hive, insofar as any Pony can, then so be it. If he is incompatible with us, then your mission is merely to procure enough essence for me to inject his empathic potential into the next generation of Changelings. I will guide you as I am able, but this mission is to be pursued with minimal interaction with the Hive-Mind, am I understood? Your fellow Changelings will have enough to deal with without the sensation of you mating with Guard-Drone Dappled blasting through the network.

I hear and obey, my Queen.

Chrysalis was rudely interrupted by a hoof prodding her side, causing a flare of pain that made her choke on the tube down her throat and disrupting her connection to the Hive-Mind for several heart-beats, the Changeling Queen giving the doctor a dirty look that made him back up a half-step.

“Theth?”

“Ah, my apologies, your majesty, but I have a question about any allergic reactions you may have experienced before?” Bedside Manner asked, a trembling attempt at a friendly smile plastering itself to his face.

It is going to be a long day. Chrysalis thought, wincing as the echoes of agreement came back from the Hive as Candy Apple plopped the Black Twins down onto the bed to join their brother, leaving Chrysalis to deal with three very hungry and bored offspring and a Pony doctor who was stubbornly determined to pry information out of Chrysalis that, quite frankly, she was not sure she actually possessed.

And the worse part of it was that he was being so damned nice about it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a torture to slowly levitate the rock off the folded-up Portable Hole, while Luna used her magic to slowly drag the enchanted circle of spider-webs and a literal fragment of the night sky across the ground as the Manticore thrashed and yowled at the top of her lungs, one adorable if still deadly cub already suckling at the beast’s milk-heavy teats, the once-immaculate tent now shredded by the constant lashing of the Manticore’s scorpion-like tail and wickedly-sharp hind-claws.

A problem with levitating an object that most non-Unicorns never considered was that one needed to see the target to be able to apply the telekinetic field in the first place. Once contact was made, unless something drastic happened, it was all but impossible for a Unicorn’s telekinesis to be disrupted even if visual contact was lost, although the individual’s mental strength and physical stamina still had a part to play in how long they could carry significant weight with their telekinesis. But to pick something up with their magic, a Unicorn needed to still be able to see the target.

And since Luna had made certain to fold up the Portable Hole as small as it could be to avoid any accidents involving their supplies before that ill-fated trip into Ponyville to return the Apple family’s cart and borrow a hot shower, that meant both Alicorns had to get close to the damnable thing, which meant getting within visual range of the Manticore, let alone its other senses, and since the clearing their tent had been set up in was tiny and shielded from the air by a pair of weeping willow trees, whose drooping branches interlocked to form a nearly impenetrable shield from the air, that meant their only option was to come in from a tiny opening in the brushes at the back of the small clearing … or the water.

Ironically, the very fact that the clearing was accessible only through a narrow path at the back or, if one had wings, to fly in over the river, was now working against them. The Manticore might not have been able to fly for long with her small wings and pronounced pregnancy, but she obviously had been able to get enough lift to flutter into the clearing and then use the tent and the bedding inside as a make-shift nest for her brood.

“This is … absurd.” Luna hissed angrily, clinging to her side of the rock as the icy-cold water threatened to dislodge both Ponies from the ancient block of granite in the water that had served as their marker for the camp’s location, while Twilight settled for a grunt as the cold water seeped in through her feathers and fur, chilling her as Luna finally dragged the Portable Hole out from under the rock, which Twilight was able to slowly put down, the slight rattle muffled by the Manticore’s loud, pain-filled yowl as another of it’s young came into the world. “One hurdle after another! What next? Tirek escaping from the bowels of Tartarus? A Cutiemark-hating Cult?”

While the ‘hiding-in-the-river-to-mask-our-scent’ plan was working, it did have a few critical flaws. First of all, Alicorns, like Pegasi, were not ducks. Their feathers were able to resist rain to a certain extent, but complete submersion like what they now endured would waterlog their feathers and prevent either Luna or Twilight from taking to the air under their own wingpower.

Secondly, they were getting very cold, and that would sap their mental strength to the point where their spells might fail or worse yet, let one or both of them succumb to fatigue.

Luna might not be able to drown, but Twilight was still mostly mortal, as Luna kept on mentioning in whispers interspaced with involuntary chattering from the very cold water.

“Important as this artefact may be, it is not worth our lives, Twilight!”

“We are not leaving the Fold of the Night Sky under a rock! That relic is a national treasure and the blueprint for every pocket-dimension theory Ponykind has developed!” Twilight chattered back at Luna, her teeth clacking against each other as she spoke, eyes glued to the Manticore as Luna painstakingly dragged the folded-up relic towards them and further away from the Manticore. “As soon as we can, we snatch up the Fold, you wrap up up in your tail and we hightail it back to the Apple’s farm for a hot shower.”

“My divine gifts should not be used for a snatch-and-grab …”

“Well, I don’t have any divine gifts right now, and I know Fluttershy would give me the Stare for a week straight if we disturbed the Manticore right now, so let’s just take it back and go.”

“Honestly, you sound like Celestia so much sometimes it is creepy …” Luna grumbled, slowly pulling the Portable Hole towards them and, once it was in range, her tail swept out underwater, pulling Twilight into it’s depths, then consuming Luna, the portable hole still floating in the Lunar Princess’s telekinetic grip as the animate piece of the night sky floated till it was just above the surface of the river before shooting off into the air, the Manticore and her two kits oblivious to their near-brush with Ponykind.

“You know, I never thought about this before, but where are we exactly? In your tail, I mean? Or some pocket-dimension?”

“To be … completely honest, I am not entirely sure. Celestia believes I am retreating ‘inside’ myself when I do this, and I have never thought to actually find out where ‘here’ is. It simply ‘is’, and it became a part of my being when I Ascended.”

“Are you telling me you never actually tried to figure out how your ‘divine gifts’ actually work? What if there’s some sort of fatal flaw, or a hidden weakness?”

“When one Ascends Twilight, we are … gifted is not the right term, but it is the closest word in mortal tongues to the knowledge we receive from the Powers. One becomes innately aware of everything one can do once they Ascend, and exactly how far their abilities can be pushed. That is not to say that one cannot increase the strength or utility of those abilities with training or study or … other processes, but the Powers placed the information I required directly into my mind when I Ascended, and I believe that if the very forces of creation saw fit to include a ‘fatal flaw’ into my powers, as you call it, then perhaps there was a reason for them to not do so.”

“Really? You’d just accept that on blind faith? I’m sorry, Luna, I am a scientist as much as a mage, I cannot simply accept …”

“Twilight? Consider that the Powers are not constrained by the flow of time as we are.”

“Your point being?”

“My point is that as the Powers exist outside of normal time and space while simultaneously being sentient expressions of the fundamental forces of Creation, they would likely be aware that I would be corrupted into Nightmare Moon, and later restored to my original self by the Elements of Harmony. My ignorance of my ‘fatal flaws’ prevented me from protecting myself against the Nightmare Spirit, true, but my ignorance also protected the entire world from the unending rage of that unincarnated spirit when it plundered my mind for secrets while it possessed my form.”

“That … but I …”

“Trust me, dearest Twilight, trying to second-guess entities that exist both as sentient beings on a level of existence so removed from our own that un-Ascended minds that try to reach them tend to literally implode from the mortal mind trying to make sense of the impressions it receives, and as self-aware forces of creation that exist at every place and every moment simultaneously is a very good choice if one wishes to either go insane, or spend the rest of their immortal existence navel-gazing and trying to wrap their third-dimensional minds around the impossibility of sentient concepts and forces.” Luna ‘chuckled’ in the disembodied … existence? Unidentified space? Twilight struggled to come up with a term to describe the indescribable and felt a massive headache coming on … assuming she actually still had a head and wasn’t just a sentient energy-wave trapped within Luna’s own energy-wave in whatever non-space they currently occupied. “The Powers seek only to aid Creation, Twilight, if only because they are Creation itself. They would not lightly create champions to ease the burden of keeping every level of Creation moving along steadily with your ‘fatal flaws’, especially when it takes them so much effort to reach down into our level of reality and shape their thoughts in such a way that the Ascended can actually comprehend them.”

“Okay, so while we’re stuck in here, I have a question. Ascended, Immortals, Princesses, all terms to describe the same thing, former Mortals made into immortal life-forms by the Powers and tied to a fundamental part of our local part of ‘Creation’, yes?”

“While it skips a great deal of nuance and decades of explanations … yes.”

“So explain to me what the buck Discord is.”

“A God.”

“So, another Immortal?”

“No, no, definitely not! While it is easier for us to sometimes declare ourselves ‘Gods’, Twilight, simply to make our roles easier for Mortals to understand, understand that if anything, we are on the very bottom of any form of Deific pecking-order. Immortals are tied to a single world and a small number of focuses, including the preservation and advancement of the species they were Ascended from.” Luna explained, her ‘voice’ filled with equal parts of amused horror and concern. “Do not, even for an instant, assume that you can stand against a God even with the Elements of Harmony, Twilight, and never forget the Elements are fragments of the Powers themselves and have their own agendas. Even Ascended, your ability to use them is entirely dependant upon your actions serving the cause of Harmony, the perfect center found between all the forces that make up the Powers. Rely solely on the power the Elements possess, and you are likely to be left utterly defenceless, especially if the Powers believe you need a lesson in humility and your ‘place’ within their grand design. They are especially fond of yanking the metaphorical carpet out from under our hooves if our agendas start to drift from what they envisioned for us, and given that it can take them a considerable amount of time to focus their attention on a single Immortal on a single world nestled within a single layer of all of Creation, it could take centuries, if not longer, for them to let you know you’ve strayed from their plans, which could lead to terrible results if your ‘deviant actions’ are the only thing keeping a species or nation alive, and suddenly you are struck down for several centuries at a time with powerlessness.”

“But as to your question of what Discord is? We don’t actually know, although the Parliament of Immortals believes that Discord could be classified as a ‘Greater Demi-God’. A God is an extra-planar being who can freely travel from world to world, who possesses many of the strengths of an Immortal and few of our constraints, although unlike ourselves, they can die. Gods of all stripes act as forces of change, both creation and destruction, drifting through the layers of reality and enforcing their unique natures on everything they come into contact with. The fact that Discord can wield the very powers of Chaos to warp reality, a very rare power and one almost unheard of when simple sorcery is capable of similar results without opening oneself to the endless warp-and-weave that is the Primal Chaos, and the Parliament’s classification rings true.”

“Doesn’t ‘Demi-God’ imply he’s a Lesser God? How can one be a ‘Greater Lesser God’? That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Demi-God as in ‘partial’ God would be a more accurate translation, especially when the term was applied by a very old Immortal speaking a very different tongue to modern Equestrian. Back on topic, most Gods have very distinct portfolios, much like Immortals as I said before however, most ‘Gods’ control very specific and narrow types of power, generally concepts such as Luck, or Benevolence or even Decay, and very few Gods control an actual part of Creation, such as having control over suns or mountains like Immortals do. Gods who can draw upon the various forces that make up the Powers, like Discord can use the power of Chaos, are mercifully rare and often struggle against each other for control of entire swaths of the galaxy, although even they must bow to the will of the Powers or face destruction. Remember, Gods can die, and are frequently, on a cosmological scale, killed during their frequent disputes with one-another and the native Immortals of the various worlds that boast sentient life.”

“No, in Discord’s case, the Parliament theorized during our first encounters with him that Discord is a sentient fragment of the Power we call Chaos that got lost and separated from the rest of the Powers during one of their trips into our layer of reality to contact an Immortal, and over the millennia this fragment developed into a self-sufficient sentient trans-planar life-form on his own once cut-off from the rarified plane of existence the sentience of the Powers dwells within. He obeys nothing and no entity that we can understand other than his every-changing whims, the Powers could only turn him to stone, and we tried using the Elements on him many times in the past, and all they did was remove the pigeon-poop from his statue, a fact that caused both my sister and I no end of frustration and apparently amused the Elements of Harmony to no end. The fact that the Gods that strive against each other to control our specific arm of the galaxy refused to come anywhere near Equuis once Discord appeared on our world, and even made a collective formal complaint to my sister when she had Fluttershy ‘rehabilitate’ him speaks volumes for Discord’s power, or at least reputation amongst the Gods.”

“So Discord is a super-god? Some sort of ancient fragment of the Powers themselves, much like the Elements? When I found them back when I fought Nightmare … uh, when I first came to Ponyville …”

“Twilight, I do not object to you talking about that abomination, just so long as you can remember Nightmare Moon was a separate entity possessing my body. It takes a great deal out of my patience when my little Ponies claim I am Nightmare Moon. That would be like having Ponies come up and trying to say you are Trixie Lulamoon because you’re both unicorns and can cast spells.”

“Point taken. Okay, so, fighting Nightmare Moon, neither of us really need to go over what happened that day, but the Elements of Harmony, the five that were physically present, were all turned to stone. Discord was turned to stone. The exact same type of stone might I point out? This might just be a lack of sleep and the beginnings of a psychosis at work, but consider that when their power was used against the purpose of Harmony, when Celestia blasted Nightmare Moon with the Elements without relying upon her sister to wield half of them, the Elements of Harmony turned into stone and the Element of Magic disappeared entirely from the world, correct?”

“Yes, but where are you going with this?”

“Well … what if the reason that Discord was turned to stone was because he was disrupting the plans of these ‘Powers’ you speak of, just like the Elements of Harmony ‘shut down’ when they were forced to activate incorrectly? So the same mechanism that forced the Elements of Harmony to deactivate until new wielders came into existence might have also forced Discord to ‘shut down’ once he came into contact with these Powers through the medium of the Elements of Harmony.”

“… That is a frightening hypothesis, Twilight, but it does fit with the Parliament’s theories on Discord’s true nature. If Discord truly is a fragment of the Powers, much as the Elements are, then it would explain why the Gods are so terrified of him, and why the Immortals of this world have been left mostly to their own devices without the Pantheons trying to push us to join one side or another, because if Discord ever decided to turn his powers to lethal force, he could quite easily kill another God, or even a number of them all at once. Those who may wield the forces of the Powers directly are capable of reshaping reality to suit their whims, after all.”

“Okay, so does that mean that the Gods are all fragments of the Powers who ‘got lost’ in our level of Creation and devolved into independent creatures?”

“Nobody but the Gods know where the Gods came from. Even the Powers remain silent on the matter, and the Gods are loathe to share their secrets with ‘mere’ Immortals. I know for a fact that our world’s indifference to their constant struggles for dominance and territory aggravates the Pantheons to no end, and part of my own Ascension involved taking control over Equestria’s night sky, which includes deflecting random meteorites and rogue planetoids that certain Gods send our way in spiteful attempts to wipe this world clean of sentient life to punish the ‘uppity’ Immortals for refusing to side with them.”

“THEY DO WHAT? WITH WHAT?”

“Have you never wondered why the moon is covered in craters? However, I will admit I am rather interested in learning who or what was swatting these giant rocks out of the sky before I took over the role?”

“HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM ABOUT THIS? ALL-POWERFUL BEINGS ARE TRYING TO WIPE OUT LIFE ON OUR WORLD!”

“Correction, Twilight: A very small number of almost all-powerful beings have been trying to wipe out life on our world. And from what the Powers and those few Gods who have no interest in dominion or control over our world have told us, those ‘rebellious’ Gods have either been wiped from Creation during their interminable wars with one another, or have been so heavily censured by the Powers that they are almost non-existant to begin with. It’s just their attacks against Equuis can take a few thousand years or so to actually reach us, so their punishment sadly does little to save us from their crimes.”

“FSDJGH!”

“Please don’t have a melt-down inside my … tail-space? I have no idea what will happen if you try to teleport out of here and my sister will never let me hear the end of it if your Ascension ends here.”

“GODS ARE TRYING TO FLATTEN US WITH ROCKS FROM OUTER SPACE? I THINK FREAKING OUT IS A PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE TO THIS! HOW COME YOU AND PRINCESS CELESTIA NEVER SAID ANYTHING? WE COULD HAVE PREPARED … UNITED THE WORLD TO CREATE SOMETHING TO DESTROY THESE PLANET-KILLERS CENTURIES AGO!”

“Listen to yourself right now and understand why my sister and I, as well as the other Immortals, never said anything to the Mortals. Between Celestia frying the bigger missiles with Solar Flares before they even get within the solar-system, and my moon being used as a shield to deflect or absorb the smaller ones or the fragments that survive her strikes, along with the Powers themselves working, in their own way, to stop the ones throwing said rocks at us across the emptiness of the Great Void, our world is almost perfectly safe.”

“… I just want to go home. We have the Fold, let’s stop by Berry Punch’s for something alcoholic, drop a shield-barrier over the library and get myself so blootered that I skip distressed and go straight to destroyed so I can wake up tomorrow and forget everything you just told me.”

“Why would you …”

“Luna, you just dropped the knowledge that there are beings out there more powerful than Princess Celestia who have attempted to destroy the world, multiple times no less, on me without any warning. It is taking everything I’ve got not to muscle out of this … non-space that you know absolutely nothing about, despite the fact it is a part of your own damn body … and rush straight home so I can figure out how to build giant cannons to blow giant space-rocks out of the sky before they wipe out all life on Equuis.” Twilight turned and fixed her attention, surly and demented as it was, on the place in the non-space that she felt she ‘heard’ Luna’s voice coming from. “The only reason I am not is that you’ve said that you and Princess Celestia have been hoofing it for millennia, and the last time I tried to solve a problem that big, I ended up creating a stable time-loop and accident-proofing the entire country for a disaster that never actually showed up.”

“… Fair point. Before we head back into town, what’s your favourite poison?”

“Promise you won’t laugh?”

“After learning I’ve caused you this much distress, I will Pinkie Promise that I won’t.”

“That … won’t be necessary, especially since the last thing I want is Pinkie popping out of nowhere while we’re … otherwise distracted if you slip up on that promise. No, I … actually don’t drink. My first real drink was when Applejack accidentally gave me a mug of hard-cider after the Flim Flam brothers came to town, and the second time I've drunk alcohol was in Celestia’s room that night she tricked us into touching horns. I was more concerned about the fact I had apparently upset you, and less about why Princess Celestia’s apple-cider tasted funny, and by the time we’d had two or three dozen glasses of the stuff, I guess I had stopped caring about what it was I was actually drinking.”

“But you asked if alcohol would affect your Ascension! You mean to say you’ve only ever had hard cider twice in your life? That you’ve never had a pint of beer?”

“No.”

“Wine? Mead?”

“No, and I don’t think anypony actually makes mead anymore.”

“Then the world is a slightly more miserable place! What about Whiskey? Vodka? Tequila?”

“No, no and definitely not! I am not drinking anything with a worm in it.”

“… Well then, dearest Twilight, in apology for upsetting you so, I promise that when we get back to your library, you are going to go on an adventure.” Luna said, with sudden steel in her voice. “We shall calm thine nerves with the sweet ambrosia of the vine, and then I shall ensure your dreams stay silent till you awaken on the morrow.”