The silence in the room was unbearable. From the stage, I could hear the streamers and the confetti from my final trick lazily trail towards the floor, accompanied by the soft murmurs of the crowd. The lone spotlight overhead blinded me from most of the room. I was glad. No point in glimpsing the faces of the wholly bored and uninterested.

Seven shows in a row. Each more disappointing than the last. If only I could concentrate on the act and not the mare that had started my downward spiral to begin with.

I wish I'd never heard the name Ponyville.

I felt my eyes water as I gave the room a smile. The smile felt far faker than any trick I’d performed that night.

When a lone figure in the back of the room stood and began loudly knocking their hooves together, the rest of the slumbering audience joined suit and I strolled off stage with my chin held high. More than anything I hoped no one was seated close enough to see my tearstained cheeks.

“Trixie the Great and Powerful, everyone!” the host of ceremonies bellowed out behind me.

Damn, I thought bitterly. And there goes the one chance of making a name for myself.

“Fucking Twilight Sparkle and her purple punchable face and her stupid smile and her idiotic mane and her….”

Like a steam pipe ready to burst, I unloaded all the vile thoughts trapped deep inside my head the moment I was sure I was alone. As I fled the castle, Celestia had cornered me, told me how much she’d enjoyed the show. Of course she would. She was the one that started the applause to begin with. She spoke and I nodded along, barely a word catching my attention until….

“I’m sure Twilight Sparkle would’ve made it if she could. I knew she was planning on attending….”

Twilight. Twilight Sparkle.

The air outside Canterlot castle never tasted so good. I sucked it back and strolled in any direction that was away. As it happened, away was down the hill and towards a large wall of hedge. Once well out of sight, I threw my hat and cape to the ground, stomping on them for good measure. I muttered under my breath as I pounded on them. “Fuck fuck fuck stupid Twilight and her fuck face magic friendship bitch—”

“Don’t you have quite the potty mouth,” a rather clear voice told me.

I jerked my head up, blood rushing to my cheeks. My first thought—the worst thought—was that Twilight or one of her friends had found me in the garden and had actually borne witness to my show. But the voice hadn’t sounded like a mare’s at all. More….

Humorous? Bubbly? Sinister?

“I wonder. Would it help if I washed your mouth out with soap?”

I lifted my chin and straightened my back. “Who dares interrupt Trixie’s time of… careful ponderings? Trixie wishes for you to show yourself! Right this instant!”

To my left sat the short path that fed back to the castle. To my right was the labyrinthine Canterlot maze, with its eight foot tall walls made of hedge, winding tunnels and spiraling passageways. Beyond that, the only other items around me were three statues and a water fountain.

“Oh, Celestia! Please say it isn’t so! Is that always how you talk? Trixie this and Trixie that? Blargh. Shudder. And here I thought I was full of myself.”

The voice seemed to come from all directions at once. I shook out my jitters. “Trixie does not have time for this! You’ve had your fun, but now Trixie has had enough!”

“She sounds confident, but is she confident? Is she really?” The voice giggled richly. “Correct me if I’m mistaken, but aren’t you that same magician that was crying on stage just a few minutes ago? Or was that someone else I’m remembering? I have a terrible time recalling things. Was that Tootles the Dancing Clown I was thinking of?”

A shadow splayed along the water fountain near the hedge and I crept towards it, my hooves silent on the grass. I illuminated my horn and got ready to pounce when the shadow slithered into the grass and vanished.

“Looking for little ol’ me?” the voice asked confidently. “I’m not that hard to miss, mind you. I’ve been standing here the whole time.”

My eyes left the fountain and traveled to the three statues opposite it. Alicorn. Alicorn. Dragon? I had to do a double take on the final statue. Or was that a snake? Goat? I went to the third statue to read its plaque: “Discord the Draconequus.” The name fit, as far as I could tell.

“What a mess….” I murmured.

“You’re one to talk.”

I spun around to the sound, only to find an empty bench and nothing more, but when I turned back to the statue, I found it gone—only a flat slab of concrete to mark that there’d been anything there at all.

“You can turn around now if you’d like. I promise I don’t bite.”

I quivered out a breath and did as the voice suggested. Instantly I regretted that decision. On the corner of the bench sat the same statue from before, colored-in and brought to horrible reality. One of his legs was crossed over the other and both of his “hands” rested on his lap. When he caught my eyes, he gave me a toothy sneer that seemed to run contrary to the promise that he didn’t bite.

I gulped. “Discord.” Not exactly a question.

He nodded. “Trixie the Great and Powerful. But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll skip the extra long version from here on out. I only have all the time in the world, so I really don’t want to use it all up on titles if I can.”

“Trixie remembers learning about you in school.”

Discord pressed a sharp fang against his lip. “No.”

No? I thought. No as in I didn’t learn about him in school, or no as in—

He raised his eagle’s claw to hold by the side of his face, his thumb and forefinger pressed together. “If you don’t want to have your snout snapped directly into your butt, you’ll stop all this third-person dialogue immediately.”

I held up a hoof. “But Trixie has always talked like this. She—”

Discord gingerly rubbed his pressed fingers together. “Are you truly the type that believes their butt doesn’t smell? Is that why you’re so driven to get your snout sent there posthaste?”

My throat went dry. I wondered if the best answer was no answer at all. I shook my head.

He grinned. “Good! Then let’s get down to business. You have a problem and I just happen to be in the mood to solve one! So come and take a seat and tell your good ol’ chum Discord all about it.” He happily patted his leg with a paw.

I stared at the tall oddity and shook my head again.

Discord rolled his eyes. “Fine. Be weird, then.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be trapped in stone?” I blurted out, my mind desperately trying to remember all I’d learned about Discord while in school. Wasn’t he a villain, too? It really wasn’t that much of a venture, considering his bizarre appearance and the fact he’d threatened to stick my nose up my ass less than a minute after meeting him.

Almost angrily, Discord waved his claw in the air. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Ms. Lulamoon. I let them believe what they want.” He nodded towards the base of his statue. “Can’t a draconequus just get away from it all for a while? Take a little vacation? Catch some me time? I let them think the Elements of Harmony have that effect on me. In reality, I just step to the side every time and erect a statue where it hits.” He snickered. “Can’t have them spending all their time figuring out what really hurts me, can I?”

Since I didn’t have anything to add to that, I took a step to the side and remained focused on the ground. “Trixie is… .” I winced as Discord growled. “I’m… going to go back now. I really should be going, okay? Bye now.”

I made it two steps before a slimy tail coiled its way around my leg.

“Not so fast, my sweet,” he cooed. “We still have business to attend to.”

Could I blast him in the face? I thought hopefully. Hit him with a spark and find Celestia before he finds me again? It was times like these I wished I was better versed in the art of magic. Even a simple teleportation spell sounded nice right around now.

“Blast me in the face?” Discord spat, somehow having just read my thoughts. “Is that how you treat all the noble creatures trying to help you? I’ll have you know my face is a national treasure! Hell, they even made a statue out of me due to its beauty! No, wait. I did that.”

He chuckled again—not as giddy as before. “But enough frivolity. Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?” Lifting his tail into the air, he set me upside-down next to him on the bench. “You seemed to be holding a grudge against a mare named Twilight Sparkle—a deep-seated grudge, by the sounds of it.”

I sat up straight again and crossed my hooves over my chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh?” Clicking his fingers together, Discord materialized a tiny speaker to sit inside his palm. My voice poured out of it. “Fucking Twilight Sparkle and her purple punchable face and her stupid smile and her idiotic mane and her….”

I grimaced, then sighed. “I don’t like Twilight Sparkle very much.”

“No shit.” He crushed the tiny speaker in his fist. “She made you feel worthless long ago, correct? And that feeling never left, so now the Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t feel so great or powerful anymore. Did you really think this show was going to turn out any better than the last one?”

Yes, I thought. “No,” I spoke, as I bit my lip as my eyes started watering again. “But I don’t want your pity.”

“Good. Because that’s not what I’m offering you.” He wrapped a thin arm around my shoulder. “Before you came to Ponyville, you felt on top of the world. Then that mare had to kick the legs out from under you, shove you into mud, and since then all you’ve done is crawl around in that mud—searching for a way out, looking to clean yourself of the reek of failure once and for all.”

I wasn’t about to put it quite so dramatically, but….

I nodded faintly. “Trixie hates what she’s become. She used to love magic, but now… .”

Discord sighed, then smiled thinly. What must’ve been on his mind must’ve been good. He didn’t even mention my previous third-person slip. “Then it sure is a good thing I’m here. You know what we should do? We should go into business together.”

I glanced up at the lithe figure. “Like a shop? Like selling hats or ice cream cones?”

“Save that thought for later. What I want to do is make you a client.”

“Like a manager?”

“No!” he trumpeted, leaving her on the bench to stand. “Now hold that tongue of yours for a moment and let me explain.” With the snap of his fingers, a small desk erupted out of the dirt, stacks of papers, quills, and hourglasses jittering along its top as it rose. Discord slid a pair of half-moon spectacles onto his nose. “Welcome to Discord Inc.! Where we make our clients’ dreams a reality, and our enemies’ lives a living nightmare! Care to begin?”

I tentatively glanced at the creature. It was the first time I’d noticed how neither of his pupils matched. Wasn’t that a sign of brain trauma? “You really don’t seem like someone I should trust.”

His good-natured smile faltered. “Oh, pish posh! I’m as friendly as a teddy bear. Now, tell me what it is you want.”

“I want to go back inside,” I said hopefully.

“Sorry, all out of escape routes. Perhaps something to do with Twilight Sparkle?” He shoved himself across his desk, knocking countless knickknacks to the ground. “From what I understand, she does have quite the effect on you.”

“Well… she….” I didn’t really know how to finish that sentence. It’d been exactly three months and three days since I stepped hoof inside of Ponyville, displaying my show for all eager eyes to see only to have it all come crashing down around me. Since then, my mind had obsessed over a lone figure—Twilight Sparkle. Some nights I wanted her dead. Some nights I wanted her to live forever so she could fully grasp the extent of my talents and skills, come to terms with how wrong she’d been when she’d tried to tango with the likes of me. Other nights—rarer nights—I wanted her to do nothing at all. Live and forget I ever existed. But maybe that was only what I wanted myself to do all along. Move past the mare that had bested me. Become the best Trixie I could be and be damn happy about it anyway I could.

But as I said, those nights were rare.

“What can you do to her?” I finally asked.

“Anything.”

“Can you ruin her life for me?”

A smile wider than any before it spread on Discord’s face. “Let me make one thing clear before we continue. You used the term ‘ruin.’ Are you sure of that? To ruin someone—to properly ruin someone—takes time; it takes dedication. They must be destroyed from the inside out. Slowly. Properly. They must be left to rot.”

My chest felt tight. “I don’t want you to kill her, if that’s what you mean.”

“Kill?” He tilted his head at me. “I don’t kill. Never have; don’t believe all the rumors you hear. No. I’ll simply ruin her life. Bring her down to your level for a change.”

“Trixie’s life isn’t ruined!” I exclaimed, so suddenly and openly I forgot about his hatred of the way I spoke.

“Is that why you’re making deals with the Spirit of Chaos right now?”

Spirit of Chaos? I really should’ve paid more attention in school. “You never mentioned that title.”

“That’s because I don’t like titles. But we’re getting sidetracked.” He leaned back in his seat and pulled a drawer out from his desk. From it, he unloaded a thick stack of dusty papers hammered together by a trio of bent nails. He slid it towards me on the desk. “Sign the contract at the bottom and initial in the corner. If you dare write ‘Great and Powerful’ anywhere on there, I’ll kick you straight to the moon. Once you sign, we can get started on things.”

I hesitated grabbing the contract. I blew off a thick layer of dust and skimmed as many lines as I could. Some were so small I doubted even a magnifying glass would help. I looked back up. “How can I trust you?”

“You can’t. But if it helps, the contract relies on a ‘Client Satisfaction’ clause. The job isn’t complete until the client says so… or until I deem the client completely satisfied.” He folded his arms as if this helped reassure her of his completely solid business practices.

I closed the contract again. “If I say no?”

Discord narrowed his eyes at me. “Then you will return home having not changed a single thing in your life. You will continue to be miserable, you will continue to blame others for your failures, and you will either give up on your dreams of being better than anyone could ever imagine or sink so low, even a gig at the scummiest of bars will feel like a gift from Celestia herself.”

The words felt like a punch to the gut. The bitter truth in them only helped spread the pain.

“And if you sign?” he continued on cheerfully. “Then Twilight becomes the one destined to fail, and you take her place as the best magic wielder around.”

I looked from him to the contract on my lap. “And you won’t kill her?”

“No.”

“Or hurt her?”

“No. The pain will be emotional, at best. The same type of pain as she caused you.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

The last question seemed to catch him off guard. He chewed playfully on his tongue. “Twilight and I have business to attend to in a short amount of time. I’d rather we skip all that, honestly. This seems like the best way to go about it.”

When I glanced at the contract again, a quill had been shoved into my hoof. I waited… and waited for something to come and put a stop to all this—for Celestia to come and find me in the garden or for the part of me that sensed that something was wrong to overwhelm the part of me that simply wanted revenge. But of course, neither of those happened.

I signed and initialed as quickly as I could, like taking a shot of bad medicine. The moment I was done, the contract rolled up tight and vanished in a puff of dust. Discord’s desk had vanished, too. Now he stood with a thin black device in his palm.

“What’s that?” I asked, uneasy now that I was locked into whatever might come next.

“A remote,” he answered calmly.

“What does—”

“To the future!” he yelled, clicking the lone button on the device.

On the side of the nearest hedge, a square box of static sprung to life, lines of swishing black and grey sliding across it noisily. Discord hit another button and the image inside the box changed. Now it was off an interior view of a café Trixie remembered from her short time in Ponyville; the sun illuminating through the café’s windows as early risers trotted inside. A barista hoofed over a coffee to her latest customer.

I didn’t take my eyes off the image. “What’s this?”

“The Coffee Corner located in Ponyville. Three shops down from Chestnut Drive and a stone’s throw away from the marketplace. It’s a well-known fact Twilight visits the joint nearly every morning.”

“Okay.” I waited for him to continue. I quickly became anxious. “So is something going to happen, then?”

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes.” Discord eyed the image with a tight grin. “Any moment now… and there she is!”

Through the view into the café, I watched as Twilight Sparkle entered and stood at the counter. Before placing her order, she yawned and gave her head a shake. With a nod, the barista began making her order.

Discord could hardly keep his giggles at bay by the sight.

I kept my eyes peeled for something important—something that just didn’t belong. But then Twilight Sparkle scooped up her coffee, paid, and left the café no worse for wear. One of my eyelids twitched and I used my horn to throw Discord’s remote to the ground.

“What is this!?” I could hardly keep my voice from trembling. “All this build up for that? What did you do? Spit in her coffee and call it a day!?”

He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Such a limited imagination on you. How horrible that must be. No. No! You need to look at the bigger picture, my lackadaisical little mare. This sight I’m allowing us to glimpse is from precisely 8:35 tomorrow morning. It’s much easier to travel ahead in time than reverse; less complicated than you would think.” He pointed a claw at the bustling barista. “Twilight Sparkle asked for a large black house brew—her usual. She was just given a decaf by mistake.”

He stared at me as if that was meant to be impressive. It wasn’t.

“So you didn’t spit in her coffee?”

Running a paw along his narrow face, Discord exhaled tiredly. “Chaos is an art form. It takes time and it takes patience. It also takes skill. You wanted me to ruin the life of Twilight Sparkle?  Well, I’ve just done so.”

I cocked a brow and felt it twitch. “By screwing up her coffee order.”

“Precisely.” He bent to pick up his remote. “Think of it like dominoes. She’s tired. She doesn’t get her caffeine fix that day. Yadda yadda yadda. And now her life is left in shambles!”

“How? When?”

“When what?”

“When is she left in shambles? When does it stop being stupid coffee tricks and become something better? You said you would make her suffer—that you would ruin her!”

He stuck a finger to his cheek. “But I did. Or were you not paying attention? Oh, all right. I’ll cut you some slack, but don’t say I don’t do anything for you. You want to know when Twilight’s ruining really gets good?”

I nodded.

“Fine. But remember, you asked for it.”

Instead of snapping his fingers together, he clapped both of his hands above his head. At first I’d thought he’d blinded me, but soon realized the sky overhead had gone from a cloudless light blue to an overcast dirty grey. By the time my eyes adjusted to the gloom, Discord was nowhere to be seen.

My guts twisted into a knot from all the changes surrounding me.

Large sections of the Canterlot maze had been uprooted or broken off, some devoured by what must’ve been fire. The statues by its entrance had all been destroyed; brought down by ropes and then smashed to bits. Discord’s statue had received the worst treatment of them all—his face nothing more than a fine powder now.

Canterlot Castle stood ominous up the hill, its windows boarded up and its stone walls cracked, chipped or outright missing bricks in spots. It was as if someone had laid siege to the place in the couple of minutes I hadn’t been focused on it.

Surrounding the castle was a clear dome made of magic that started a dozen steps onto the lawn. I strained my eyes to glimpse a faint color deep within the gray shield… and what else was I seeing there?

“Looks like you done goofed!”

I yelped and spun around, crouching to the ground. Discord casually came towards me, his arms folded behind his back. “Explain! Explain now!” I spoke.

“You really are a dumb little mare, Ms. Trixie Lulamoon,” he told me curtly. “And you really didn’t think about the larger picture even after I mentioned it.”

“What?” I suddenly found my breath harder to control. My senses telling me both to run and yet to stay. “Did you have something to do with this? Why is Canterlot in ruins? Why is everything changed?”

“I had nothing to do with this, Trixie. You did. Welcome to the one year anniversary of your Canterlot debut. You’d asked me to ruin the life of Twilight Sparkle that evening, and I did. That night, things got kicked into motion, and this was the result.”

“All this from a decaf coffee!?” I screamed, my voice echoing far into the distance.

Discord closed his eyes as if my screams soothed him somehow. “Yes, but a decaf coffee given to one of the greatest mares that will ever live. Twilight Sparkle was destined for greatness, you idiot. She was going to stop evil and tyranny in its tracks and bring about a new period of peace. Or she was until you came along.”

No, my mind thought stubbornly. No, no, no, no, no….

“Yes,” he replied, after he must’ve read my thoughts again. “You thought Twilight was just some ordinary mare, did you? The personal student of Princess Celestia and redeemer of Nightmare Moon? Bah! To even have begun to compare yourself to her was asinine.”

“Twilight… Twilight was the one that reformed Princess Luna?”

“Yep.” He nodded smugly. “And she goes on to do so much more! But, alas, you just had to put a stop to it, didn’t you? Oh, what a time to be alive it is. The bug Queen Chrysalis was never stopped; the tyrannical King Sombra reclaimed his Crystal Empire, and anyone that could’ve put a stop to them is in no position now to do so. So, congrats, kiddo, on ending all life as we know it in Equestria! I just knew you had it in you!”

I crumpled into a tight ball on the lawn. My whole body shook uncontrollably.

Discord stood over me. “Feel important now?”

“Please tell me this is a joke. You said you’re the Spirit of Chaos, right? So maybe this is all a—”

He snorted. “Not today, I’m afraid. But look on the bright side. With no Twilight in the way, maybe you could be the hero for once!”

I said in the warm confines of my ball. “All I wanted was to be a good magician….”

“And look how well that turned out for you. But it looks like you’ve got company. Good luck!”

Someone’s hoofsteps halted behind me. “Just what do you think you’re doing on my lawn?”

The voice was female and echoed eerily, not like a pony’s voice at—

Splack!

Something green flashed behind me for a split-second and careened ahead, slamming into my back with the force of an iron-hot sledgehammer and pushed through. Onto the ground below me shot out bits of organs, blood and bone, and I soon collapsed overtop of them.

I tried to breath, but noticed what might’ve been parts of lung near my head. I felt pain, a lot of it, only far removed, as if it were happening to someone else. Shock, I thought oddly. Or something like that. It wasn’t every night you ended the world only to die a few seconds later.

The pony behind me kicked my shoulder so I faced the sky. Instead of skin, she had black chitin, and wispy turquoise hair. Below her long and jagged horn, her slit eyes glared at me. “Is this one of those resistance ponies?” she asked the similar looking creature behind her.

The smaller changeling shook its head. “Not that I can tell. I’ll take a run-through on the sketches, though.”

“Let me know if there’s a match.” Queen Chrysalis thought for a moment, her lips widening into a grin. “And have someone fetch Funny Face and bring them up to my chambers. Give them a bath while you’re at it. This mare’s splayed guts put me in a rather good mood tonight.”

The smaller changeling nodded. “Yes, my Queen.”

“And make sure someone hoses off the lawn.”

The pair of them strolled back to the castle as Discord stood overtop of me. He grimaced as he took note of my chest… or the fact that it had been removed recently.

He shook his head at me sadly. “Oh, dear. And here I thought you’d do so well. Ready to try again?”

The world went dark as I heard a snap. Next Chapter: Chapter 2: The Encore Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 12 Minutes