After living in Canterlot for two months, Havoc finally felt at home in the city. It hadn’t been easy, though. Havoc had soon found himself nearly overwhelmed by the kind of problems he hated the most: those he couldn’t solve with violence. Replacing Gwar had been surprisingly simple, as Trixie was rather self-sufficient, so more often than not he only needed to sign the documents she filled for him and read the important looking ones to have a general idea of what was going on. There had been only one time when Havoc had been forced to intervene, when a bunch of rural ponies had decided to lynch any diamond dog who “dared” to enter their village. After discussing with the princesses what he could and couldn’t do, he had resorted to assuming his diamond dog form and simply walking to the town. He had kept up the charade until he was certain that most of the culprits had gathered to see how he was hanged, and then he had turned back to his original form, making shackles and chains bind all of the surprised ponies. His inner Social Justice Warrior he hated so much had smiled with joy when the score of royal guards who had been waiting outside of town took the still shocked ponies away.

Dealing with Screwball had been a completely different matter. Havoc had met Fluttershy as soon as he had been able to, and then had basically told her everything he knew about Discord and Screwball. With a look of determination, Fluttershy had shouted Discord’s name the moment Havoc was done. The next two hours were very upsetting and extenuating for all of them, with Discord trying to avoid the problem as hard as he could while Fluttershy refused to yield until he promised that he would try his best to amend his errors. As he promised, he shot Havoc a venomous glare that scared the shit out of him, and after that they had the most awkward and forced tea conversation ever.

Things got progressively worse after Discord apologized to Screwball for how he’d used her. Knowing what he had to look for, Havoc couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed how Screwball felt. She was like a building with cracks running through it all, just a step away from breaking. He could only try to help her and hope that she would be able to repair the damage on her own. Discord telling her how sorry he was for having messed her up opened the wounds, allowing them to heal but making her hurt more than before. Some days she would refuse to know anything about magic, avoiding Havoc and her own powers as much as possible. Then there were the days when all she did was wallowing in her own magic, forcing Havoc to say he was the one behind all the chaotic occurrences to keep others from learning about her.

Luckily, she slowly overcame her issues as days passed. A month after they arrived at Canterlot, she had improved greatly. She had come to terms with the fact that she had wasted most of her life serving a mad spirit of chaos who had almost stopped caring about her the moment she outlived her usefulness, but she needed more time before she would be able to get it behind her for real. At the same time, however, she had distanced herself from Havoc. She told him that she no longer knew whether she still wanted to have anything to do with Discord or not, and that he reminded her of Discord too much to be comfortable around him. After that, she had moved to Ponyville, where she planned to live a normal life until she made up her mind.

Finding himself alone, Havoc had then decided to make new friends with his fellow humans. After meeting many of his neighbours, he had bonded with four of them enough to call them friends. They all had gone through similar experiences, including ponies being downright hostile towards them at times due to their appearance, so he found he had more in common with them than with most other humans in Canterlot. One of them was Jaime, the man who had been turned into an anthro female fox, who was the sanest of the group by a long mile. There was also Sylas, who had been turned into some sort of powerful draconic creature, about the size of a very big human. After months unsuccessfully trying to convince dragons to abandon their greedy and violent ways, he had moved to Canterlot to find others willing to help him achieve that goal. He could be a bit overwhelming sometimes, and he seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice too much. Despite that, he was always up for having fun and was as loyal as they come.

The third of Havoc’s friends, Comodo, had been turned into a griffon from Saddle Arabia. Unlike “normal griffons, Saddle Arabia’s ones looked like a mix of vulture and jackal, looking thin and sickly in comparison. He didn’t like to talk about what he had done before going to Canterlot, but Havoc suspected that something terrible had happened to him. Comodo had admitted that he could do magic, mainly necromancy, but using such arts in Canterlot would likely make him spent the rest of his life in jail or Tartarus. His greatest power, however, was his non-literal silver tongue, as he could get almost anyone to do what he wanted just by talking them into it.

The last member of the group, Shoes, was the strangest by far. The former human had become a living crystal the size of a pumpkin. He depended on his magic for everything, from levitating around to communicating via telepathy. His new form had also given him a vast knowledge of magic, which made him a lethal foe if angered. Even though chaos magic wasn’t his forte, he had managed to explain to Havoc most of the theory behind how his powers worked, and even suggested him a few ways to use his magic that could help him, such as changing the probability of certain things happening when he needed to. Soft-spoken and kind, he was a great friend whose only problem was that he sometimes could disappear from the radar, only to reappear a week later talking about the latest spell he had helped to create.

Unfortunately, peace didn’t last for Havoc. Seventy days after first arriving at Canterlot, he felt a burning pain while Trixie was handing him his daily dose of paperwork. After a few seconds of confusion, he realized what he had just felt: the leaf from his arm he had given Comet Tail in Trottingham when he left, with orders to burn it if they ever were in danger.

“Trixie, a magic alarm I placed a year ago has gone off,” Havoc explained. “I need you to warn the Princesses about a possible catastrophe taking place in Trottingham. I’m going to travel there right now, and if what I’ve felt isn’t a false alarm I might need backup. Alicorn-sized backup.”

Having learned to tell when Havoc was genuinely serious, Trixie nervously nodded just before he teleported away. Using a trick Shoes had taught him, Havoc turned his body into pure energy and travelled through one of the many ley lines that crossed under Canterlot: the invisible but immensely powerful underground links between places of magical power that spanned all over the planet, connecting said places like a living being’s veins. This allowed him to move at great speeds with little cost of energy, at the risk of being overwhelmed (and instantly killed) by the powerful magical currents. In just under twenty minutes, he had covered the considerable distance between both cities, returning to the surface just a few kilometers away from Trottingham. From there, he only needed to teleport a dozen of times before he appeared right in front of Comet Tail. He found her curled into a ball under a table in her house, his leaf slowly burning between her hooves.

“Oh, thanks Celestia you’re here,” she said, jumping out of her hiding spot and hugging him. “Now we might have a chance.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just an hour ago, Discord appeared in the middle of the market place, accompanied by a terrible monster,” she explained, not daring to raise her voice. “The monster then opened its mouth and the magic of all the ponies in the area was stolen by it. Those of us who weren’t too close managed to get away, but I keep hearing the cries of ponies as Discord seizes them up so the monster can steal their magic.”

“Discord?! But, he had turned good!” Havoc exclaimed. “This is bad. I can’t fight Discord. I’m nothing against him.”

“Then take us away, you can teleport ponies. Take us to Canterlot.”

“I can’t do that, either. I’m not strong enough and Discord would catch up with us. Have you seen Diane?”

“No, she must have been working in the castle when this happened.”

“Alright, listen: I’ll go after the creature and try to destroy it before Discord finds a way to stop me. There are some magics placed on me that don’t allow Discord to harm me. What does the creature look like?”

“It’s looks like a minotaur from the waist up, but it’s lower half is like a pony’s body, four legs and all. It’s also big, really big, and black and red.”

That sounds familiar, and not in a good way. Not at all. Havoc thought as he remembered the only centaur to ever appear in the My Little Pony franchise. “Stay here and don’t come out until it’s safe,” he said as he teleported towards the large and ominous magical presence he had felt as soon as he reached the city’s outskirts.

This time, he appeared several meters behind his objective. The creature matched Comet’s description, resembling a centaur, if centaurs were half pony and half minotaur, with roughly Havoc’s size and a black and red color scheme. There was no doubt for Havoc: this was Tirek’s G4 version. This Tirek was powerful, but Havoc had expected much more. Any adult dragon would easily surpass him in raw power, and Havoc himself had a similar amount of magic at his disposal at the moment. Sensing his presence, Tirek turned around, staring at him in confusion.

“Who are you supposed to be?” he asked, his voice powerful and masculine.

“I am Havoc, and I’ve come to put a stop to this,” Havoc replied as he summoned Infernal Soul, internally grimacing at how edgy and tryhard his phrase had sounded.

Tirek laughed at his words, then opened his mouth wide. Havoc felt the centaur’s power trying to steal his magic but, after months fighting orthros in Gem Fido, he had learned to fight back such techniques. When Tirek realized that Havoc was actively stopping him from draining his magic, he stopped trying and eyed him carefully.

“You are stronger than you seem. Unfortunately for you, I’m not alone. Discord!”

“What is it, pal?” Discord’s voice asked as his body materialized in front of him. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Havoc. “What are you doing here? Is this about Screwball, because now is not exactly the time for that.”

“You stupid piece of shit, you’ve turned evil again!” Havoc spat. “Have you forgotten that this is a show for little girls? Bad guys never win!”

“Havoc, Havoc, Havoc,” Discord said in a patronizing tone. “That’s not how it works, at all. Now, please stay out of the way.”

“Just get rid of him, Discord,” Tirek said. “If you don’t, he’ll betray our actions to the princesses before we’re ready for them.”

“I would, but he’s one of the pieces.”

Tirek growled. “You chose the worst possible time to start this game of yours, pal. Well, let’s play by the rules, for once. My piece versus this insolent mortal who thinks he can stop me.”

A sphere of powerful magic appeared between his horns, looking like a miniature sun with black ripples crossing it. At the same time, a huge circular portal appeared in front of him. Havoc took a step back when a massive scaled claw stepped out of it, followed by the rest of the body. From the portal emerged a dragon with two heads, its power beyond anything Havoc had felt before.

“Havoc, Hygorrkon. Hygorrkon, Havoc,” Discord introduced them. “You two have fun while we take all the magic in this city.”

The two headed dragon roared as he charged, forcing Havoc to dodge. Lightning bursted from Havoc’s fingertips, but Hygorrkon’s scales barely registered the attack. Hygorrkon’s right head turned and released a burst of fire so hot it melted the cobblestones under him, so Havoc teleported away from the attack. The first thing he saw after appearing was Hygorrkon’s second maw reaching towards him. Hitting it with his hammer, he forced it to retreat, but it didn’t cause any noticeable damage.

Even though Hygorrkon was quite smaller than some of the adult dragons Havoc had fought during the Gem Fido war, the speed and power behind each of his attacks made him deadlier than the relatively clumsy dragons. He continued exchanging attacks, trying to find an opening to finish him in one hit. Eventually, Hygorrkon’s left claw got stuck on a wall after punching through it. Havoc then made Infernal Soul appear, and landed a powerful hit against the dragon’s exposed chest. The attack made Hygorrkon drop dead, copious amounts of boiling blood spraying all over the place. Havoc turned away, already trying to find Tirek’s magical aura, when he felt that Hygorrkon wasn’t as dead as he though. The dragon’s magic burned itself healing the lethal wound, restoring him to full health but making him a tad smaller at the same time.

“your gona pay 4 that,” Hygorrkon’s left head said. “you’re choas magik cant win”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Havoc replied, surprised by the fact that Hygorrkon could talk. “Why are you trying to kill me, anyways? Tirek is the bad guy, and you don’t have to obey him if you don’t want to.”

“psssh…nothin personnel...kid…” the right head said as they attacked again.

This time, Havoc replied by attacking back. He created several magical copies of him which would disintegrate upon touching anything solid, but which succeeded in confusing Hygorrkon and letting Havoc slip through his defense. Havoc’s attack managed to cut clean Hygorrkon’s left wing, making the dragon shrink again as a new wing grew from the stump in a few seconds.

“thats no fair u kno??? fight liek a tru man!!1!” the left head shouted.

“Oh my fucking god, your voice is giving me a headache!” Havoc complained as he attacked again, only to be swatted away by Hygorrkon’s brand new wing.

“ur gona burn!” the right head said just before breathing fire in Havoc’s direction.

Unable to teleport in time, Havoc had to raise a magic barrier to protect himself. However, the raw power behind the flames overwhelmed the weaker sections of his uneven barrier, charring parts of his body.

“his still alibe, burn him moar!” the left head said.

“why are yuo talkin insteed of burnin him to your wastin our tiem?”

“shutup its you’re fault he attak my wing.”

“wat are yuo talkinabout??? its not my fault???”

While the heads bickered at each other in their incomprehensible language, Havoc healed his wounds and sneaked on them. When they began to try to bite each other, he attacked the left one’s neck with all his strength. The axe beheaded the dragon in one hit, the remaining head crying in pain as his body’s size became several times smaller. Havoc continued to attack, not allowing the dragon to heal in time. When the wounds stopped closing themselves, Havoc found that Hygorrkon had become roughly human sized. He prepared to hit it one last time with Infernal Soul, just in case it wasn’t dead yet, when the gory remains were engulfed in fire, forcing him to take a few steps back.

A few seconds later, the fire extinguished, revealing that Hygorrkon had managed to heal by assuming a less threatening form. Gone were his dagger-like teeth, ripping muscles and firebreath hotter than a volcano; everything replaced by little more than a parody of what a dragon should be.

“your gona pay for this,” the left head, which hadn’t managed to regrow a full neck, threatened Havoc.

“Nope,” Havoc said as he grabbed each head with a hand and tightened his grip until crushing them, oblivious to their screams. Wiping away the blood and brains from his hands, he waited until he was certain that Hygorrkon had died for real. “Well, that was way easier than I expected. Now, where the h-”

A massive blast of chaos magic in the distance interrupted Havoc’s train of thought. As he turned towards its source, he realized it had come from Trottingham’s castle. When he teleported there, the first thing he saw was Tirek laying on a smoking crater in the middle of the castle’s yard, barely conscious. The next thing he saw was Discord holding Diane with one hand while trying to take her necklace off with the other.

“How did you even manage to charge this thing with so much magic?” he asked as he ignored the powerful blasts of energy the necklace attacked him with. “Little clones shouldn’t play with such powerful weapons, anyways.”

Havoc punched Discord in the face, but he only managed to break his diamond dog hand against Discord’s face, which had become harder than steel.

“You do realize that, now that you have attacked me, I can fight back, right?” Discord say as he smirked.

“Oh, please do!” Havoc taunted, making Discord frown in suspicion. “That’s what Disharmony wanted since the very beginning. I realized it months ago. She’s always wanted me to make you angry enough to attack me. Fall in her trap and die, you betraying son of a bitch!”

Havoc’s words made Discord stroke his beard, thinking about what to do next. Seizing his opportunity, Havoc snatched Diane out of Discord’s grasp and teleported as far away as he could.

“Fuck! Shit! Shit! Fuck!” he cursed between each teleport until Trottingham was no longer in sight. “Diane! Why in Hell did you attack them? The only reason you’re still alive is because I was there to save you!”

“I’m magic and water shaped into a pony, Havoc. What do you think will happen to me if that minotaur takes away the magic part? I hoped I would manage to kill him before he turned me into a lifeless puddle of water.”

“Fuck, you might be right. You’re safe now, so we have to get to Canterlot right now and warn the princesses. Does your necklace have enough mojo to make us go faster? I burned myself pretty badly with the teleports.”

“Hold tight, we’re going for a ride!” she exclaimed as her necklace engulfed them in light and made them fly at a high speed. “I sure hope I’m going in the right direction!”

“I think you are!” Havoc said.

Thanks to Diane’s unsuspectedly powerful necklace, they reached Canterlot in less than an hour. Not wanting to waste any extra second, Havoc dropped Diane and charged towards the palace’s gates, shouting the guards to open them so he wouldn’t have to crash through. After a minute running through the palace’s corridors, he barged open the doors that led to the throne room where Celestia and Luna often held audiences.

“Havoc!” Celestia exclaimed. “Your assistant told us about what you felt. Are you back from Trottingham already?”

“Yes! Discord has sided with Tirek and is helping him take magic out of ponies!” he shouted, and then stopped to breathe, winded after his sprint.

Luna and Celestia eyed each other with worry. “Are you sure?”

“I am. The only reason I could escape is that they can’t attack me unless I hit first.”

“Then this crisis is worse than we ever dared to imagine. You’ve proved yourself once again by warning us about this new development,” Luna said. “Return to your home and await for our orders. We might need your help to see the end of this.”

“Your wishes are my commands, princesses,” Havoc said, as he had been told to do shortly after being knighted in order to follow the knights’ costumes and codes. Bowing, he left the throne room, this time walking at a normal pace.

“What are we going to do now?” Diane asked as Havoc reunited with her.

“I am going to stay here because I’ve been ordered to do exactly that. You, however, are going to take the first train straight to the Crystal Empire, where you’ll be safe as long as the Crystal Heart is around. With a bit of luck we’ll take Discord and Tirek down before they cause much damage, but I’m not risking it.”

“Well, at least I’ll get to see the Crystal Empire now that it’s not controlled by Sombra. Please be careful, and try to find Screwball before she learns about this. After all that she’s gone through, discovering that Discord has gone back to his old ways, essentially betraying her once again, could either break her or make her react in a drastic way.”

“Shit, you’re right. I need to go find her right now. Stay safe, Diane. Even if you have to end up hiding under a rock in the middle of nowhere, never let Tirek get close to you.”

“Don’t worry about me, Havoc. I can take care of myself, really.”

“Alright, come back to Canterlot when it’s all over. I want you to be there when they make me a stained glass window to immortalize how awesome I am.”

After a brief laugh and a briefer hug, Diane and Havoc parted ways, wondering if they would see each other ever again.

Author's Notes:

I'm not happy with how this chapter turned out, but it's still a better love story than Twilight Fifty Shades of Grey so it's fine.