I grin behind my mask, a smile not matched by the coiled chaos-god shivering before me. "I gotta admit, you ponies always find a way to surprise me," I chuckle. "Here I am, showing up for just a quick checkup, and who do you have over? The guy I froze in stone when I first came here!"

Discord winces as if struck, cowering in a timid way nopony has seen since Tirek's triumph over him. I can only smile and shake my head. "Relax bro, you're in good company here! I'm not gonna freeze ya again!" Couldn't if I wanted to, but he doesn't need to know that. "That shit's in the past now, y'know?"

"Pardon me for being ill at ease," Discord replies, his wide, yellow eyes locking on mine through the lenses of the mask. "I mean, you did petrify me and everything, and were it not for the chaos your reign has inadvertently wrought, I would still be down there, so..."

"Oh, I just needed you out of the way, make sure you didn't interfere until my plans could bear fruit," I scoff, waving a hand out to the caged and chained ponies around us. "So, what do you think?"

He actually takes the time to scan around and look back at me with a grin so fake I'm surprised it doesn't shimmer like plastic in the rising daylight. "From one villain to another, I've seen better," he chuckles.

"Ahh, but I'm only getting started!" I return the chuckle, but with more heart and gusto behind it. "In a few years, you won't even recognize the place!"

Discord takes another moment to scan the pinched, shivering, frightened faces around him. "No, I'm afraid I wouldn't," he mumbles.

Of course, his concerned gaze doesn't escape me. "Oh now, what's this?" I ask, feigning surprise. "Haven't grown soft around these little ponies, have we?"

"Well, what can I say?" He shrugs. "Spend enough time around anyone, and they tend to grow on ya, you know?"

"Ooohhh, if only I did know," I sigh, shaking my head. He cringes again as I stand up, wiping my hands on my pants. "Tell y'what: let me offer you the deal I was gonna give you in a few years. I was hoping to solidify my grip on the kingdom, but since you're here, might as well, right?"

Discord uncoils a little, leaning towards me. "A...deal?" He asks, oblivious to the dismay rising on all the cute, widdle pony muzzles around us. "What kind of deal?"

"I'll give you Equestria," I reply, smiling down at him.

Discord's jaw drops, his eyes widening. "Wait, what?"

"I'm gonna give you Equestria," I repeat, the gears in my head turning. Yes...this could work...rather than reforming Equestria to leave behind its bigoted, awful past, I can wipe the whole thing out under a blanket of chaos and start over! And with the only sanctuary from his powers under my control, my ability to forge the populace into whatever I wish will explode! And hey, I can always repetrify Discord in a few years, I’ll probably come up with something in that time. "You can have all of Equestria, except for Canterlot castle. Everything else, though, is all yours. Just leave me the castle my changelings and I fought so hard for."

Discord’s eyes wander around, darting about the room, resting on each pony in turn, and then his yellow gaze falls on...aw no, Discord, c'mon! Don't fall for that trap! Don't look into those stupid, big, blue eyes and expect to see anything else!

"I'm sorry," he whispers, looking into Fluttershy's little face. "But I can't."

"Oh, come the fuck on!" I facepalm. “Really!? After everything!?”

“Yes,” he whispers, coming just a little further out of his coil. “Especially after everything.”

Fluttershy stands in her cell, eyes wide in shock. He just smiles at her, even as she presses her muzzle to the bars, jaw gaping.

“Still buying into the bullshit, huh?” I scoff. “Fine, just don’t come crying to me when they inevitably try to petrify you again.”

“Wait, wha…” he cocks his eyebrow at me, standing fully once more. “You’re just letting me walk out of here!? Just like that!?”

“Well, yeah!” I shrug. “Just go on, and remember: I offered you Equestria. So there. Auf Wiedersehen, dude. Arriba-derchi. Go on. Get the fuck outta my house.”

He cocks an eyebrow suspiciously. “You seem awfully fine with everything I just confessed to.”

“Aww, that?" I wave him off. "How could I be mad at you for lying to cover for your friends?"

Discord freezes, first looking confused, then eyes looking over me in horror. Most of the ponies mimic the same motion. My self-assured smile fades. What, they didn’t expect me to buy into that horseshit, did they?

“Well, I will say it was surprisingly noble of you, trying to take one for the team like that,” I shrug, my hand resting on Discord’s talon. His claw shivers beneath my grip. Seriously, is he trying to milk this performance or what? “If only it wasn’t oh-so-convenient, y’know? I mean, placing all the blame on your shoulders?”

“I-it’s true though!” He reaches for me.

“Sure thing, Discord,” I shake my head and turn to walk back up the stairs, leaving his reaching claw hanging. “Take the time you want to say goodbye to your little friends, alright? Just don’t forget to lock the door on your way out.”

Behind me, I hear Discord take a few more steps, then stop suddenly. When I turn and peek out the corner of my eye, I see Fluttershy’s little yellow hoof wrapped around his bear paw, holding him back. “Don’t,” she whispers, probably thinking I’m too far away to hear. “He’ll kill you.”

With a sad smile, Discord gently eases her hoof off his arm. He slowly leans down, planting a gentle kiss on Fluttershy’s forehead. “Thank you for being my friend,” he whispers back.

“Come! The fuck! ON!” I scream, turning with a stomp of my foot. Discord looks up, surprised. “Don’t you think you’re laying it on a little thick!? Jesus Christ!”

“No, not thick at all,” Discord replies, laying a final claw on Fluttershy’s cheek.

She whimpers and holds it there a second. “Don’t…” she whispers again, but he’s already pulling away and striding towards me, eyebrows hunched in determination, his kiss leaving a glow behind that stays on Fluttershy’s cheek for a few minutes.

“When I started this little ‘project,’ the ponies weren’t the only ones I affected,” he announces, looking all the while like a pissed off lampshade as he strides up to me, his legs shaking, but his chest still thrust out. “There was you too. I changed you.”

I just smirk at him. “Nice try, but I still don’t think…”

“Why didn’t you leave?” Discord asks.

I whirl on one heel, eyeing him. “What?”

“You could’ve left at any t-time, so why didn’t you?” Discord repeats.

“The…portal I used was one-way, I…”

“Not this world, Ponyville!” Discord screams. “Why didn’t you leave that little village!? Why did it never occur to you to try somewhere else!?”

“What, and get the same treatment from the Manehattanites? Or the Cloudsdale pegasi?” I snort.

“You didn’t know for sure it would’ve been the same! Surely, you could’ve tried! And even then, you still could have returned to the princesses! So why didntcha!? Why didn’t it even occur to you to try!?”

“I…” My head cocks, my eyes drifting off of him. It…can’t be, I refuse to believe it…no, I remember why…it’s just…right now it’s just…gray…

“I-I’ll tell you,” Discord finishes, his voice trembling uncharacteristically. “It’s because I didn’t want to lose my newest toy.”

All at once, a flash of gray zaps over my body. My eyes widen as I turn on the spirit, my stomach tumbling, my muscles spasming as the magic washes over me. Everything from those few years, the things that had been covered up: the nights his voice whispered in my dreams while I slept in my cave, the chortling laughter that followed one of Applejack’s bucks or Rainbow Dash’s lightning bolts, the lack of hope surrounded by a certain gray haze. Around me, my colors grow sharper, as if I’ve been standing in a fog these past few years, and suddenly I’ve just stepped out of it. It was him. My God, he was telling the truth.

I…

How could…

Why…

Oh my God.

Oh my fucking Jesus God…

After a few minutes of standing there silently, my breath rushing in and out through the respirator, my muffled voice finally comes through. The emotion makes it squeak girlishly, but if anybody notices, they don’t dare point it out. “So, that’s it then?”

Discord looks up at me and nods, his mismatched eyes meeting with the plastic visor in the mask. “Yes,” he croaks, his voice barely a whisper.

Once again, I spend a few minutes just standing there, breathing through the mask, my shoulders rising and falling with my breath. Then, all at once, I stop, and the air rushes out in a long, drawn-out sigh. “Yes,” I mutter, a hand running through the tufts of hair along the back of my head. “Yes, of course.”

Discord’s eyes sink back to the floor. “I…understand you’ve been through a lot, because of…my actions…”

At that, I whip around, the mask locking on him with the precision of an air-to-air missile. “Do you now, do you!?” I scream, striding up to the spirit until the mask’s filter presses against his misshapen snout. “Do you really understand!? Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through!?”

“Only that it drove you to this,” Discord replies, his voice still an uncharacteristic, quivering gasp.

“Is that all!?” I bellow. “You dare stand there, telling me you understand what I’ve been through, and that’s all you fucking know!?” My hands go to the mask and tear it off, casting it aside to allow the draconequus to drink in my face, the one beneath the skin I adopted for myself. Discord’s eyes widen in shock. He takes a step back, his eagle talon clacking on the polished marble. I stalk forward with him.

“My God…oh my God!” He gasps, drinking in the ugly, twisting scar and the milky-white eye. “What happened to you!?”

“You did!” I scream, grabbing a tuft of chest fur in my grip and yanking him towards me. “All these years, I thought it was them! I thought it was the ponies! And really, it was all you!”

“I…I…” Discord stammers, taking another step back.

“What, did you think you could condemn a man to living in a cave and it would all be okay!? That he would come out just fine after you summoned a stroke of lightning for giggles!?”

“Y-your magic!” Discord stammers, another step back. “Your ambient magic should have protected you…it was just supposed to be a tickle!”

“Humans don’t have magic, you fucking moron!” I scream into his face like a hysterical mare. In my turmoil, I rip off my tunic, the buttons popping away and clattering to the floor. “We have nothing! Every single buck, every single strike, every single attack, it’s all here! It’s all still here!”

Discord’s eyes widen even more, his jaw working up and down as he drinks in the road map of little, white scars covering my chest and shoulders. “I…I didn’t know…”

“That’s all you have to say!?” I shriek. “Five years! Five years of hell! Of pure agony! Of feeling betrayed by the ponies I thought I loved, of having to build up a place to belong with my own blood and sweat, all because of your stupid, irresponsible bullshit! And that’s all you have to fucking say!? You didn’t know!?”

“I…” Discord bows his head again, his shoulders sinking like a condemned prisoner. “Yes. That’s all.”

My hands go to my head, my breath coming in heaving, panicked sighs as I stumble back. “My God,” I repeat. “Oh my God, I was going to…I just…oh my God!”

“Just…leave them alone,” Discord says, his eyes closing as he waves to the ponies in cages around him. “It’s me you wanted all along. They were just…my tools…”

“Wait, no!” Twilight finally speaks up, standing in her cell. “Discord just turned the volume up on what was already there! I’m the Princess of Friendship and I thought nothing of slamming that door in your face! It was all of us, Jason! We all did this to you!”

My vision shifts to her, glaring down at the pretty purple princess. Amazingly, she looks back at me with pleading eyes. I shake my head. “He’s the one who saw the pieces. He could’ve ended it at any time. I’ve settled up with the pawns, now it’s time to take down the king!”

On the last word, my boot lashes out, almost without me commanding it. It just happens. But all at once the draconequus is sprawling back, laid out on the floor with a choked gasp. Some predatory part of my brain lights up. Pain. He needs to feel pain. I leap on him, barraging him with my fists and slamming him against the tiled floor, attacking him like a feral beast. “All these years! I spent weeks crying myself to sleep, screaming to God why, why the ponies I loved didn’t return that love, why I was the only one in a land of peace and harmony to know only pain and loneliness!”

“Please,” Discord starts, his paws rising defensively, only to fall again. I cut him off by grabbing his beard, yanking him up by it, and slamming his head back down as hard as I can.

“I’ve done things that can never be taken back!” I scream in between blows. “I’ve hurt ponies, changelings! I’ve been beaten, tormented, hated! I had to stand there while the ponies I loved jeered at me, felt my heart crushed with every blow, every hit! Do you have any idea what kinda hell the last five years have been!? I don’t even remember what that love feels like anymore!”

The princesses gasp at that. Oh good, finally somepony understands this pain. I couldn’t care less. The blows continue, arms toned and muscled by years of hardship finally releasing all that pent-up frustration and anger. Every lonely night, every moment of agony, all relived as I keep it up until my fists ache and my arms burn, covered in blood that’s only partially my own. A punch nails him across the cheek like a lightning strike, a knee slams into his gut like a hoof buck, and I scream as loud as I can, matching the volume of the terrified screams that came whenever I stopped in town, just before the garbage started flying.

Finally, it stops. I nearly collapse, gasping with the effort it takes to remain upright, my hate-filled eyes still glaring at the unmoving draconequus. For a moment, I figure he might have lost consciousness, then he coughs, spitting out a bit of blood.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

My breath pauses in a quick hitch, then comes out again in a chortle. “You’re sorry?” I ask, followed by a quick laugh. I grasp the spirit by the horns and look into his eyes. “You’re sorry!?”

“Y-yeah,” Discord coughs. “You weren’t supposed…to be hurt this bad…”

“Well guess what!? I was!” I rise to my feet, still breathing heavily, hands propped on my knees again. Then an idea occurs to me, and a smile crosses my face. A dangerous one, like a lion spotting a wounded gazelle across an open savannah. “And y’know what? I just got me one helluva idea.”

With practiced ease, the weapon on my back slides into my hands. The princesses shiver at the sight of it, Twilight nuzzling into Celestia’s chin. “Oh, I see you recognize this, your highnesses,” I say, my voice a little bit too high-pitched and quivering to be normal. “That’s nice. By the way, sorry for the misunderstanding we’ve been having lately. I’m sure I can make it up to you later.”

My gaze falls on the draconequus, who looks up at me like an abused dog that knows it’s just broken another one of its master’s arbitrary rules. “Of course, your little ponies only got a small taste of what this thing is capable of,” I explain ever-so-eloquently. “Stun rounds, designed to break up a little bit after piercing skin.”

I pull out the ramrod and shove the next round home, cocking the hammer with a satisfying click. “These, though,” I chuckle darkly as the first trickles of tears start down my face. “These do something a little more permanent.”

A gasp makes its way around the room as I stride up to Discord. The whole world shrinks away as I stalk to the cowering body and place the sole of my boot on his chest, pressing down as hard as I can and delighting in the wheeze that escapes. Finally, figuring enough is enough, I bring the musket up to my shoulder and level it on a little spot between those mismatched eyes.

“This…this is for everything,” I rasp. “Everything that’s happened to me, and that I’ve made happen, all because of your shit. All the hate, the anger, the pain, this is for everything you’ve done! This is me finally making things right!”

“Jason, don’t!” I look up, momentarily distracted by the outburst. All eyes turn to the source, even Discord’s: Celestia, now standing proud and tall in her cage, still every bit the ruler she was on her throne just a week ago despite the goop coating her wings and horn. It’s enough to make my breath catch despite myself, but the anger surges right back.

“Don’t?” I ask, my voice trembling. “Is that all you have to say? Don’t? Is that really all you can think of to stop me from settling things after five years of hell!? After what’s been done to me, is that all you have to say!?”

Her gaze softens against me. Nopony speaks as the Princess lowers her head, almost in contemplation. Then, her voice rises once more: “Don’t become the monster you’ve been treated like. Please.”

I stumble back, nearly tripping over Discord’s sprawled, lanky form. We lock eyes again, me and him, him and me, and that look, that pathetic look…

I bet he was wearing that same look when Tirek beat his ass.

I sneer. “Crocodile tears won’t help you now.” I hiss, raising the stock of my weapon to my shoulder again and focusing down the sights at the beaten, misshapen face before me. To his credit, Discord doesn’t beg, he doesn’t struggle, he just looks up at me with that same, sorry look.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his eyes squeezing shut.

“Five years too late,” I rasp, my finger curling around the trigger. The rest of the world fades away, the six mares begging and struggling against their chains, maybe screaming for me not to pull the trigger. I don’t know. I’ve tuned them out.

My breathing becomes heavy, my teeth bare in a ferocious grin, my nose twists with rage, the trigger starting to give from the pressure building under my finger. My eyes narrow into little rage-filled slits.

“I’m sorry,” he exhales, inhales. My finger tenses over the trigger, and then a flash of yellow knocks the barrel of the musket out of the way.

“What the fuck…” I start as orange hooves lock around me, pinning my arms to my sides.

“I got ‘im!” Applejack, holding onto me, like I’m some bucking bronco to be tamed. “I got ‘im, Flutters! Get the gun!”

Showing off a surprising amount of aggression, Fluttershy wraps herself around the barrel of my weapon, tears streaming from her eyes. “Please…he’s my…”

“Who. Cares!?” I bellow, driving us backwards, slamming Applejack into the bars of Rarity’s prison. Before the white bitch can join in, I throw myself forward, all of us tumbling, spinning, the gun between us. Flutters still wrapped around it, still trying to pull it aside, gonna take more than that bitch, a lot more…

Ooh, this has Discord written all over it, probably that kiss had a little bit of him in it, just enough to pop the lock on a couple cages. Well fuck him, he’s not getting away that easy. The bastard’s yelling something off to the side, I don’t hear it. Can’t process it. Gotta keep my eyes on the prize, gotta work on making sure they don’t stop me.

I twist.

The barrel pokes out.

My finger slips.

In the split second before the hammer falls, I realize that in our struggles, I’ve levelled the musket right on Sparkle’s cell. She doesn’t even move. She doesn’t duck. Her eyes widen in terror. Celestia reaches for her through the bars of her cage, screaming in absolute horror. I twist my wrist, trying to angle away from her, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough, Jesus God, it’s not enough.

A rush of fur fills my vision.

There’s a deafening blast.

Everything stops.

I look up, and find my intended target there, curling up on the floor. He looks up at me, eyes wide with surprise. Blood mats into his fur.

“D-Discord?” Fluttershy asks, her grip on me falling away.

He shivers, a few streams of blood raining around his muzzle. “It’s alright,” he stammers as he falls to the ground in a long coil. “It’s okay…had it…had it…”

His tumble ends with his body coiled around itself, like a garden hose. He lets out a long sigh, his lungs emptying themselves. And we all stare.

No…

No, wait…this isn’t…this isn’t…this can’t be…

“Duh-Discord?” Fluttershy squeaks.

The lanky, furry body shrinks, as if deflating. The claws and talons twitch a final few times and lay still.

Fluttershy loses her grip on the barrel and drops to the cobblestone. She drags herself desperately to the body on the floor, a few sobs already escaping her mouth as she wraps herself around it. “He was doing…better…” are her last coherent words before a long, drawn-out sob rips out of her mouth, the sort you’d expect from a child in a tantrum. The cries are only interrupted by the occasional, soundless wheeze in the moments between a new breath.

Applejack is still at my side. After a while, I feel her tremble. Her tears are quieter, her sobs contained, but I can feel them still as we watch Fluttershy cling to the body, blood smearing across her chest. I watch dispassionately for a while, my lips pursed, before I slowly climb to my feet.

I start at Pinkie Pie’s cage, unlocking it with the key ring in my pocket and swinging the door open. She cowers away from the opening door as I move on. Rainbow Dash is next, and then Twilight, me making a circuit around the room. At Rarity’s cage, I pause at the way she looks up at me. Gone is the pity. Gone is that apology. There’s just accusation and rage. “Are you happy now, Jason!?” She shouts, tears standing in her eyes. “Do you finally feel better about all these years!? Or do you need to burn down another village!?”

I don’t respond. I just carry on to the next cage. Celestia is the last freed. And then, I pocket the key ring and trudge towards the exit.

“Jason?” Celestia asks. I pause for just a second, my boot on the bottom step. I know how she looks: that disappointed mother look, gazing at me, her eyes watering as they look through the back of my head. I carry on, up from the dungeon, away from the small group of crying, sobbing ponies, towards the light. A hoof stops me, clasping around my hand. I pause in my step, and despite myself the tears won’t stop.

“Jason?” Celestia repeats herself.

I pause. Only for a bit, just enough to make sure my voice doesn’t crack or waver. “My changelings have been busy altering documents and destroying records all over Equestria. You now have no way of tracking any of my Infiltrators all over the country.” I turn, glaring into her wide, stunned eyes, my tears wiped away with a swipe of my hand. “If you try to follow us back or take any action against any single Infiltrator, I will order the rest to go on a spree of destruction that will make the fire at Ponyville look like a piddling flare up. Do you understand?”

She continues staring, those massive, magenta eyes locked with my own, her jaw somewhere around her neckline.

“Alright, let me be clear: leave us alone, or we’ll burn down every major population center from Manehattan to Trottingham. I will leave you with nothing but this castle and a wasteland filled with ash to rule over. Nod if you understand.”

Another few minutes pass until her head slowly bobs up and down, those wide, shocked eyes still locked with my own. I glare into her for a moment longer, then turn and continue my journey up towards the light. This time, she doesn’t follow.

Author's Notes:

This was hard to write, to say the least. It took quite a bit of debate to get it where I wanted it to be. Originally, I had no plans to kill Discord, but after the last chapter I realize that we just haven't earned that sort of ending yet. It would be a bit too light-hearted after everything we've all been through. Then, this came along, this idea: what if we pulled that trigger? What if we went ahead with everything?

That idea was just too enticing to ignore. I hope you all enjoy.