Arc ONE: Chapter 7

The savory aroma of steamed vegetables wafted through an open window in Stephen Scope’s kitchen, drifting up and away as it ventured out into the peaceful midtown neighborhood.

A curtain of tranquility seemed to surround this upscale section of Manehattan, shielding it from the casual mayhem that ran rampant in the downtown areas. It was late in the afternoon, and the streets were unusually quiet and still and serene and well.

Without a care in world, Stephen Scope pranced and twirled about his kitchen, his tie-dye apron flouncing like a filly’s skirt as he gathered up heaps of plates, drinking glasses, napkins, and silverware from various cupboards and drawers. He balanced one stack of tableware on his head, and another on his back, humming cheerily as he carried them from the kitchen to the dining room.

The round dining room table was a luxurious affair craved of imported ever-wood, a type of wood harvested from the snarling trees of the Everfree Forest. Scope set the table with meticulous care, arranging plates and glasses and placing silverware on folded napkins. He was expecting some important company today, and everything needed to be flawless.

Once the table was set, he took a moment to admire his handiwork. Just then, a kitchen timer sounded.

“Oh, the roast is finished!” he thought aloud, his effeminate voice tinkling like a bell.

Scope opened the oven and wrinkled his nose. Being an earth pony, he found the aroma of cooked meat repulsive, but his coming guests were carnivores and he wanted to impress them. His wife hated that he always kept meat in the freezer for occasions like this one; she didn’t share his keen appreciation for preparedness or his talent for expecting the unexpected.

With mitted hooves, he lifted the piping hot roast from the oven and set it on the stovetop to cool. Then he checked the clock on the oven, discovered that his guests were running late, and decided to use the extra time to freshen up. The smell of cooked food had seeped into his cobalt blue hide, and while it wasn't altogether unpleasant, he preferred to clothe himself in the flowery aromas of fine soaps, shampoos and colognes.

He slung his apron across the kitchen counter before prancing off to the restroom, where he washed his face and hooves, and spritzed his neck and shoulders with Opalescence, a new fragrance (for stallions of course) by famous fashionista Rarity. It had a rich vanilla scent that Scope adored, but currently couldn’t enjoy properly. There was another scent present in the restroom, a strong, foul odor that smothered his cologne.

Scope turned his head, touched a hoof to his chin and eyed the body bag lying in the bathtub, his face scrunched with mild revulsion. After standing in silence for almost a minute, he made a mental note to stop working in the restroom, then pranced off to his bedroom to get dressed, his mood unsullied.

Standing before his bedroom closet, Scope was torn between two nearly identical turtleneck sweaters. One was black with a white lattice pattern stitched across the chest, while the other was white with the same pattern stitched in black. He pouted as he compared the two, holding one of the sweaters up to his petite frame, and then the other. He wished his wife were here to help him decide which was best for tonight’s occasion, but she was away in Discord’s Kitchen on business.

After much deliberation, Scope chose the black sweater with the white pattern. He pulled it on over his bouncy grey mane and rolled the sleeves up to his knees.

He was posing with puckered lips in front of a mirror when the doorbell rang. Startled, Scope hurried downstairs to get the door for his guests. The moment his hoof touched the doorknob, a sudden ray of insight shined down on him.

“Music!” he chimed. The bell rang again. “Just a minute please.”

Beside the luxurious color television, which occupied most of the living room, sat an equally stupendous hoofmade record player. The record already resting in the player was the first album by the critically acclaimed ensemble, Second String: a two-mare duo whose members included the well established Octavia Philharmonica and her unconventional but ingenious partner, Lyra Heartstrings.

Do gangsters enjoy classical music, Scope pondered as he placed the needle on the record.

The doorbell rang again, this time accompanied by knocks and a raspy whine.

“Coming!” said Scope, as he pranced back to the door. He took a moment to adjust his horn-rimmed glasses, then twisted the knob and threw the door open. “Grift, darling, it’s been too long!” He extended one foreleg in a cordial gesture, fully expecting to be met with open arms. He wasn’t. He was greeted instead by the rumble of wheels on asphalt as a carriage raced from his driveway, and by the familiar hysterical laugh of Manehattan’s most notorious lunatic.

As the mysterious carriage speed away, Scope noticed something odd lying on his doorstep. He squinted down and saw that it was an unconscious zebra bound up in holiday themed wrapping paper. The whole of the zebra’s body was covered by the paper except for his neck and head, and a red ribbon was tied in a bow around his mouth. His eyes were shut, and his face looked pale and drawn, as if he were injured or very sick. The wrapping paper was a shiny metallic green, but much of it was stained blood-red.

A disappointed sigh flitted from Scope as he knelt down and picked up a sheet of paper taped to the zebra’s chest. It was a note that read: “Please return upon repair.”

After reading the note, Scope took a moment to reflect on the corpse resting in his upstairs bathroom. His lips pursed.

“Oh, pooh,” he thought aloud, wishing he had cleared his workspace last night.

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Twenty's holding cell was oppressively small, and the cot she laid on was hard and lumpy. She was lying on her back, with her forelegs crossed about her broad chest and her one good eye fastened to a single crack on the ceiling. The crack was difficult to see; there were no bulbs or light fixtures of any kind her cell. The corridor beyond the archaic stone chamber was lit by dying ceiling lights, coughing and gasping weak visibility to the ground outside her cell.

Her shoulder wound had been treated and bandaged, but it still ached. Indeed, her entire body was racked with dull pain, a nagging reminder that she hadn't fared well in her clash with Berry Punch. Hours had gone by since the fight, but the electric charge of adrenaline in her veins had yet to fade, and the white-hot flush of hatred was still burning in her cheeks.

Since arriving at the jailhouse, Twenty had tried to relax and contemplate her next move, but the task was beyond her. Berry Punch had consumed her thoughts, made her restless. Her mind turned over their most recent conflict in the minimart. She analyzed the memory with supreme care, picking it apart with mental tweezers and scrutinizing every detail.

Why were they so equally matched, Twenty wondered. She was stronger than Berry. Faster. More durable. She had trained her body to its psychical peak, transforming it into something imposing and destructive. She had been weak the night her family was taken from her—the night her old self died and the criminal Twenty was born—but that was a long time ago. She was strong now; she should have been too strong for Berry Punch.

And yet they had been trading blows years now, locked in an eternal seesaw battle. Why? What was the problem? What was she missing?

With unanswered questions weighing on her heart, Twenty turned over on her side and curled into a sullen ball of tight, aching muscles. She wanted to cry but managed to resist the urge.

"You really screwed up this time, kid," said a hollow voice that seemed to spin itself from thin air. Twenty looked up from her moping and watched a ghost phase through the wall. It moved tentatively through the solid stone, as if not trusting the floor it walked on, and came to a stop beside Twenty’s cot. Her expression brightened as she watched the translucent specter solidify into a wiry, snow-white unicorn wearing a snow-white suit.

“Wisp, Comrade!” she exclaimed, practically leaping out of the cot. “Iz good to see you! You are coming to spring me, da!”

Wisp took a puff from the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Let’s keep the shouting a minimum, yeah?” His pink eyes shifted furtively in their sunken-in sockets, watching for any guards that happened to wander by. “And I’m not here to ‘spring’ anypony. I came to warn you about the price on your head.”

Twenty’s eyes gaped, one ablaze with shock, the other dim and listless. “Price?” was the only word she could muster.

“Fifty grand for the pony that whacks you,” said Wisp, his explanation terse and pitiless.

Twenty shook off her surprise. “Impossible,” she scoffed. “Baritone let me off with warning. Why iz he letting me live only put price on my head later?”

“Baritone’s a dumb thug; he doesn't write up hit lists. And before you ask, no, this ain't Filthy Rich’s doing either. It’s the Shadowbolts, Twenty. They're saying you've stepped out of line one too many times. They're saying you're a liability now.”

“But—” she tried to protest.

“But nothing, dumbass,” Wisp countered. “Turf is turf. You've been in the game long enough to know that.”

Twenty felt her stomach lurch. She paced the length of her cell, mumbling half-formed curses in her native tongue.

“Mind telling me what you were thinking, kid?” said Wisp. He took on the stoic air of a parent scolding his disobedient daughter, and Twenty hated the fatherly mix of concern and disappointment his pink eyes. It was a look meant for a child, and Twenty wasn't a child anymore.

“Shadowbolts are stuck in old ways,” she said. She stopped her pacing and came to a standstill in front of Wisp, staring daggers into his pink eyes. “They obey imaginary lines in sand without question and are all the time submitting to uptown gangsters.”

“The uptowners call the shots because they have the money and the power,” said Wisp. “You saw firsthoof what freaks like Baritone and Soprano can do.”

“I am not afraid of Filthy or his goons.”

“And that’s your problem right there, kid; you still got all that macho, street-tuff bullshit bouncing around in your head.” Wisp finished his cigarette, dropped it and crushed under his hoof. “You know that little tremble that dances down your spine when you hear something in the dark? That’s your body telling you wake up and pay attention. Only your body doesn’t do that anymore because you’ve trained it not too. You want to be fearless, go join the bucking Royal Guard. But if you want to make in it Manehattan, I suggest you teach yourself how to tremble.”

“I have done my share of trembling already, comrade,” Twenty intoned, “and so have my fellow Shadowbolts. Da, is true Filthy Rich is having his freaks. But you are forgetting that Shadowbolts are having biggest freak in city. The Prankster is free and siding with us. We should be taking advantage. We should be seizing opportunity and—”

“Pinstripe never came back,” Wisp interrupted.

“What?” Twenty’s jaw tightened.

“Blitzkrieg sent him to fetch ol’ Pranky and he never came back. The Bolts are assuming he’s dead.” Wisp placed a consoling forehoof on Twenty’s shoulder. “Sorry, kid, but you should’ve known better than to put your faith in that lunatic.”

“What…” Twenty swallowed a lump in her throat and retreated a few paces. “…What should I do now?” She was backed into a corner—she had been her entire life—and her best chance of escaping that corner had left on a suicide mission and wasn’t coming back. “What should I do, Wisp? What should I do?”

“You should confess to whatever charges the cops have pinned on you,” answered Wisp. “The Bolts want your head, and you'll be safer in here than on the streets.”

Twenty nodded weakly. Her jaw and muscles loosened, the fight gone out of her. “Did Blitzkrieg send you here to kill me?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“He did,” Wisp answered plainly. “He knew I’d be quick about it. Didn’t want you to suffer, I suppose.”

“And what will you do...when Krieg discovers that you let me live?”

“I’ll do what I do best, kid” he said, his tone almost warm, his pink eyes on the verge of betraying some semblance of emotion.

“Hey!” shouted a guard unicorn as he approached Twenty’s cell. “Who are you talking to in there?” He peered inside suspiciously, but all he found was Twenty standing alone beside her cot.

“Nopony,” answered Twenty with a defeated sigh.

She glued her good eye to single spot on the floor—the spot where Wisp had dropped his cigarette butt. She was sure he had been standing right there when he crushed the butt under his hoof, but now it was nowhere to be seen. Any sooty residue was also gone, and even the stinging smell of tobacco had evaporated from the stale air in the cell.

Wisp had vanished without a trace, a true ghost of the daytime hours to rival Manehattan’s masked phantom of the night.

“There is nopony in here with me,” Twenty repeated sullenly. “Nopony at all…”

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The underworld was much cleaner than Pinstripe expected it would be, much more hospitable. He had always pictured it as a cavern filled with stalagmites made of severed unicorn horns, and though he had never actually smelled sulfur, his imaginings of the afterlife were always teeming with the offense odor.

But this place was… pleasant. Cozy, even. There were no musical numbers or trannies, and that was disappointing, but the room he was in smelled of lilac and the tiled, onyx-black walls were spotless.

He was sitting in some kind of large bowl, no doubt a cauldron waiting to be filled with water before Discord’s minions lit a fire beneath it.

Did Discord rule over the underworld, Pinstripe asked himself. He didn’t know much about Equestria’s pantheon of deities, and he didn’t believe in the supposed spirits or gods his homeland. He had never put much stock in alicorns or deities, those overgrown children frolicking in their ivory towers while world rotted beneath them.

As far as Pinstripe knew, Discord was the only immortal whose name was synonymous with evil, so it seemed natural that he should lord over the damned.

Sinful...? Pinstripe turned the word over in his mind, measuring it, weighing it, pondering its meaning and its worth.

Did a word like that mean anything to zebra who had grown up in Manehattan? Was Manehattan a true den of sinners, a genuine wretched hive? Or was the place so packed with evil that the very concept of sin had be thrown out altogether? After all, Pinstripe reasoned, evil couldn’t exist in a world bereft of good, and the opposite was true as well. Like light and dark, male and female, left and right, one could only be understood so long as the other was present. And if there were no righteous ponies living in Manehattan, then perhaps there were no sinners either.

Oh well, Pinstripe mused, shutting his eyes while he made himself comfortable. In any case, this pseudo-philosophical line of circular ruminating hardly matter anymore. He was dead now, doomed to a never-ending existence of agony, of tortured wails and gnashing teeth.

“It’s like I never left home,” Pinstripe joked, finding comfort in the morbid gallows humor. “Is that why you’re always laughing, Pinks? Because it’s easier that way?”

The unanswered question raged in his mind like a madmare struggling to free herself from a straight jacket. Pinstripe was never good with questions; he had a tendency to ruminate on even the simplest ones for days. What a fitting castigation that would have been: an endless lashing and flogging of the mind by whips made of unanswerable questions.

That would have been more interesting than being boiled alive for the rest of eternity. Wasn’t never-ending suffering supposed to be ironic? Oh well, he mused once again, that odd humor keeping his mind in a state of unshakable ease. Being boiled alive wasn’t the worst punishment he could think of, and if the water heated up gradually enough, he figured the first few minutes might be relaxing, like soaking in a hot tub. He never had comforts like hot tubs while he was alive. Why, with the right attitude, Pinstripe thought this eternal damnation thing might not be so bad.

A clicking sound found his ears, like a button being pressed, and gradually the caldron began filling with hot water. The water bubbled up from tiny holes that had opened in the bottom of the pot, as if draining in reverse. Odd, Pinstripe thought, but then he was in Discord’s domain, so he figured anything was possible.

The torture had begun, but so far it was pleasant enough. He stretched his forelegs over his head and leaned his back against the rounded wall of the cauldron. A yawn pried his mouth open. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, then rested his forelegs along the cauldron’s lip. To his surprise, he found a tiny cocktail glass sitting on the lip. He lifted the glass with both forehooves and held it under his nose, breathing in its pleasing aroma before taking a sip.

“Mmmm, mimosa,” he said, giving the glass a small swish. “Discord, my friend, you have excellent taste! How ‘bout a toast!” He was surprised to hear himself shouting and so full of vigor.

“Sounds like somepony’s in a festive mood,” said a voice that tinkled like a wind chime. Pinstripe craned his neck in search of the voice’s owner, and found a petite earth stallion with a cobalt blue coat and a bouncy gray mane. He watched the naked pony circle the caldron, swallowing an eyeful of the his effeminate grace. Despite his slim build, the stallion’s haunches and hindquarters had a noticeable curve to them, and his hips rocked with a lewd, bewitching charm.

“Is that you, Discord?” Pinstripe blinked and rubbed his eyes. His vision was slightly blurry for some reason. “Trying to trick me by turning into a pony, huh? Get your ass in here and let’s have that toast!” he exclaimed, raising his glass for the Lord of Chaos.

Discord climbed into the caldron, slowly, treating his guest to a display of naked curves as he lifted himself over the pot’s lip. “And what are we toasting too?” He pressed a button on the cauldron’s lip and the water stopped rising. The pot was so full now that droplets splashed over the side as Pinstripe raised his glass for the toast.

“To sin!” Pinstripe said without meaning to. He couldn't straight; a dreamy haze had settled between his ears, and his face and hooves felt slightly numb, as if he were drunk.

“What a ghastly sentiment,” said Discord. He waded closer to Pinstripe, moving with the same grace he had exhibited on dry land. “You’ll have to excuse me, though. I don’t seem to have a glass.” He kissed the edge of Pinstripe’s glass before taking a long drink.

Unconscious of his actions, Pinstripe watched Discord’s throat flex as it swallowed the drink, enamored by the slight bob of the deity's adam’s apple. A single golden bead of mimosa dripped from the corner of Discord’s mouth and rolled down his chin. Pinstripe had to fight a sudden urge clean it away with his lips.

“You got a little—” said Pinstripe. He wiped his own chin to show Discord what he meant.

“Oh,” Discord replied with mock coyness. “I can be so messy at times. Could you get it for me?”

Pinstripe reached forward and whipped away the golden rivulet, letting his hoof linger awhile as it stroked the corner of Discord’s mouth.

“Tell me, dear,” said Discord, “what are you in for?” He pressed a hoof to Pinstripe’s chest, tittering as he felt the hard muscle beneath the zebra’s striped pelt.

“In for?” Feeling more comfortable now, Pinstripe grabbed Discord by his narrow waist and pulled him closer, earning a girlish squeak from the chaos lord.

“But of course, darling,” said Discord. “You don’t end up in Tartarus for being a model citizen.” The hoof on Pinstripe’s chest climbed upward, scaling the zebra’s neck and settling on a striped cheek. “It’s confession time, dear. Tell me your sins. All of them.”

His sins? That would be somewhat difficult; Pinstripe didn’t spend much time dwelling on past evil deeds. Absentmindedly, he kissed the hoof on his cheek as he took a mental tally of all his crimes.

Thinking nothing of the bizarre request, he told Discord about his first crime. When he was a young foal, he would often steal coins from his mother’s purse at night while she slept. He needed the money to pay off the neighborhood bullies when they jumped him most every day after school, and his mother was the only readily available source at the time.

He understood, even at a young age, that he and his mother were very poor, and that she worked hard doing jobs she hated to earn the money he so callously stole. He understood that it wasn’t fair to her—but the bullies didn’t hit him as hard when he paid them, and they didn’t shove his face in toilet bowls or urinate on the back of his head.

“That was my intro to crime, I guess,” he said, and it pained him deeply to know that his first sin was committed against his own mother. “Pfff, whatever, she was never around anyway. She had to work two jobs to keep the lights on. I hardly spent any time with her growing up.” A touch of anger invaded both his words and expression. It was small, but Discord noticed it.

“It’s always the ones we love that get the worst of us,” replied Discord, his tone thoughtful and understanding. He massaged Pinstripe’s cheek, earning a weak smile from the zebra that was on the verge of collapsing into a frown. “Let’s have more, dear. You must have been a violent soul to have ended up down here.”

Perhaps it was the barrage of sensual sights and touches playing upon his senses, or simply the light feeling in his head, but Pinstripe felt perfectly at ease stewing in hot water with this attractive pony version of Equestria’s Lord of Chaos. He seemed to hold some nameless power Pinstripe, and the source of that power was housed in the deity’s touch, in the bell-like tinkling of his voice. Pinstripe found himself wanting to please Discord, as a son intrinsically desires to please his mother.

He brushed Discord’s forehoof away from his cheek and clasped it between his own front hooves, squeezing lightly. Then he started a new story for Discord. A violent one.

“When I was twelve years old there was this piece of shit kid named Crest always following me around and giving me a hard time,” Pinstripe began. “Crest was an earth pony from Trottingham and a real shit-starter. The guy was barely fifteen years old and he already had beef with half the neighborhood tuffs in Discord’s—well, in your kitchen, I guess.”

The two of them laughed together, and Pinstripe unconsciously inched his muzzle closer to Discord’s, his wanting eyes fastened to the stallion’s lips.

“So one day this Crest asshole is following me around,” Pinstripe continued, “and he’s laying into me with the usual bullshit—calling me a poof and a nancy and all that. He tells me how he’s gonna kick my ass and bend me over a table, going on and on about how much I’m gonna love it.” Pinstripe laughed and shook his head at the memory. It seemed so perfectly absurd now, though it had been anything but at the time. “He’s really laying it on thick, and the whole time I just keep thinking, ‘for buck’s sake, it’s not even a school day’.”

“No?” Discord laughed, enjoying the liveliness in Pinstripe’s voice.

“No,” Pinstripe laughed back “it’s a Sunday, and I’m just trying to get home from the grocery story. I got milk and cheese stuffed in my saddlebags—the whole bucking nine yards. And the worst part is, I can’t go home ‘cause the last thing I need is this prick knowing where I live—ya get me?”

Discord nodded.

“So I come up with the bright idea to just wander around the neighborhood. I figure Crest will eventually get bored of following me, but no, this asshole is relentless. We walk around for at least an hour, and after awhile I realize that he’s never gonna let up unless I make him.

“So I lead him down an alleyway, drop my saddlebags and tell the asshole to buck off before I feed him a few of his own teeth.” Pinstripe smiled big. He shoved Discord playfully and raised his forelegs in a mock fighting pose, pantomiming the actions of his childhood self.

“But this Crest guy—he’s been around the block one too many times to fall for any of my bullshit threats. He sees through my bluff and starts laying into me like you wouldn’t believe. I’m talking, kicks, butts, bites… It was the worst ass kicking I ever got as a kid, and I got plenty. And the whole time he’s kicking my ass, he’s going on and on about how he’s gonna drag me behind a dumpster and fuck me till I can’t see straight.”

“Did he?” Discord purred. Without warning, he slapped the water’s surface with a dainty hoof, splashing Pinstripe in the face.

“Hey, cut that out; you’re distracting me,” said Pinstripe, splashing Discord back.

A jovial war of splashes broke out in the cauldron, and both Pinstripe and Discord beamed as they battered each other with airborne droplets of water. Eventually their long distance skirmish moved to close quarters. Abandoning his previous tactics, Pinstripe threw his forelegs around Discord’s neck and dragged him beneath the water’s surface, where they wrestled and teased each other with excited touches.

Though Discord had taken the form of an earth pony, he was by far the weaker of the two. Pinstripe muscled him clear across the length of the cauldron (which was much longer than it should have been), and pinned his back against the pot’s rounded wall. They were chest-to-chest now, and their flirtatious power struggle had left them winded and breathing heavily.

Discord’s front hooves found their way to his playmate’s shoulders, and Pinstripe could feel the raw desire to touch and grope and fondle that was trapped inside of them.

It was a heavenly feeling, to be touched and held and wanted. He couldn’t remember the last time somepony wanted him the way Discord wanted him now. It didn’t matter to him that Discord had taken the form of a stallion; his touch was intoxicating, and his body was soft, and his scent was sweet, and his lips were—

“Finish the story, dear,” Discord chimed, his voice tinkling like a bell.

“What?” Pinstripe said stupidly.

“The story, you silly lug. Finish it, and I’ll reward you with something special.” Discord ran his tail along Pinstripe’s inner thigh, making him shudder.

“Ummm…where was I again?”

“I believe Crest was throttling you, dear,” said Discord, laughing his tinkling laugh.

“Right, right,” said Pinstripe, remembering where he’d left off. “So like I was saying, I’m getting bounced off the walls like a rubber ball, when out of nowhere this group of colts creeps up from behind and pulls Crest off me. They shove him to the ground and start kicking him, shouting something about him owing them money.”

“Ah, a touch of retribution,” said Discord.

“Something like that,” said Pinstripe, and Discord was surprised to hear some of the luster drain from his voice.

Pinstripe went into greater detail about Crest’s beating, describing how Crest bellowed when the colts stomped his underbelly, and how blood sprayed from his nose when they lifted him and drove his face into the alley wall. He laughed cruelly and said that watching Crest get pummeled was worth the beating he had taken himself.

He seemed to be stalling, Discord noticed. He lingered a long while on the particulars of Crest’s beating, as if not wanting to continue the story. Discord took it upon himself to help move things along.

“Don’t be afraid,” he cooed, disrupting Pinstripe’s train of thought. “It’s all right dear, you can tell me what happened.”

But could he tell himself, Pinstripe wondered. He took a deep, solemn breath and tried to move the story forward.

“...So, thinking I just caught a lucky break, I pick myself up and try to sneak off while Crest is getting pounded. But one of the colts spots me limping away, and the little bastard decides to shake me down along with Crest…”

Little by little, Pinstripe seemed to deflate as he spoke.

“…He’s young, this colt. He’s an earth pony, only a little bigger than me, and he’s got this screwdriver in his mouth…” And then his voice trailed off entirely. He covered his mouth and looked away from Discord, his eyes fixing on one of the black walls. Suddenly he was lost in thought, staring at the wall but not really seeing anything.

“Go on,” Discord prodded, massaging Pinstripe’s shoulders.

“…He’s got this screwdriver in his mouth…” Pinstripe began again, speaking slowly, eyes still bolted to the wall. “…And he comes at me like he means to kill me. He doesn’t run at me or nothing like that. He just walks nice and slow—and it’s like I can see it in his eyes. I mean... he’s just a little foal, but I can see it. For as long as I had been getting bullied, nopony had ever looked at me like that.

“Before long I’m rolling on the floor trying to wrestle the screwdriver away from him. He’s a lot stronger than me, and the whole time we’re going at it I’m thinking about how much I really don’t want to die.

“Next thing I know the screwdriver is in my mouth and the colt is on his back, shaking and spitting and hacking while his friends crowd around him. Then I notice the blood. It’s in my mouth and all over my face and none of it’s mine.” Pinstripe sighed and ran a wet hoof through his mane. He looked away from the wall and back at Discord, a myriad of confused emotions stirring in his stony eyes. “The stuff was everywhere. I must've stuck him in the neck, ‘cause it was everywhere…”

After a long pause, he laughed and said, “Afterwards that asshole Crest yanked my tail and shouted me for me to run for it. We sprinted away together, side-by-side. Been friends ever since.”

“Did the poor little colt perish?” Discord asked.

“Buck if I know. He was still shaking on the sidewalk when me and Crest ran away,” said Pinstripe.

“Oh, you poor thing. The world has been so cruel to you.” Discord cupped Pinstripe’s chin and pressed his forehead against the zebra’s. “It’s because of your stripes, you know.”

Confusion invaded Pinstripe’s expression.

“The world is jealous of your colors,” Discord continued. “It wishes to be simple—to be black and white—but you remind it of how messy things can be. Steal or suffer. Kill or be killed. You remind the world that it is grey, and it has punished you for its own weakness.”

Pinstripe didn’t understand what Discord meant. The puzzling words entered in one ear, passed through the fog in his head, and tumbled uselessly out the other. He didn’t care, though. He didn’t want Discord’s words; he wanted his touch. There was a warmth and a kindness in his hooves that Pinstripe had seldom known while alive. And there must be magic in those slightly parted lips, he thought—the magic of closeness, and of skin caressing skin.

Pinstripe shut his eyes and searched the darkness for Discord’s lips, yearning for a taste of that magic.

“Tell me another story, dear,” said Discord. He drew his head back just as Pinstripe’s mouth came near his own, dodging the zebra’s kiss. “I want to hear about your life as a gangster.” He flattened himself against Pinstripe’s chest and pillowed his head on the zebra’s shoulder, his body radiating peace and comfort.

A pang of disappointment resonated within Pinstripe, but he didn’t let it spoil his good mood. He would have his taste of magic soon enough. In the meantime, he stroked Discord’s back lazily and started telling another story, this one about his relationship with Blitzkrieg.

He told of how they met, he and the leader of the Shadowbolts. Pinstripe, not knowing who Krieg was at the time, had tried to rob the old stallion at knifepoint outside of a bar in the lower east side. He was in his early teenage years then, and during those years robbery was his sole means of supporting himself.

The Pinstripe that attempted to mug Blitzkrieg back then was a wretched husk of an equine, dressed in threadbare clothing and brandishing a dull knife between his clenched teeth. The two Shadowbolts accompanying Blitzkrieg that night, Hammer and his brother Sickle, were upon the would-be mugger in seconds. They were young colts themselves, only a few years older than Pinstripe, but together they were more than a match for him.

They beat him bloody and disposed of him in a dumpster outside of the bar. But they didn’t kill him—Blitzkrieg had ordered his life be spared.

That night, Pinstripe laid awake in the dumpster until morning, not sleeping a wink, crying in pain and wondering why his miserable life had been spared. He couldn’t decide if this turn of fate was a blessing or a curse. He was alive, and he supposed that was a good thing, but he would have to get up in the morning and drag his broken body to a nearby subway station. He would have to ride the train home with an empty stomach. He would have to lie to his mother about where he had spent the night. And if all that weren’t awful enough, he would have to return to this side of town the next day and stalk the streets in search of new prey to rob.

It didn’t seem worth it. Rather than rise from the dumpster, he contemplated rooting around in the trash for a sharp piece of glass. His knife was dull, but with a sharp piece of glass he could cut his own throat and stain the black trash bags red with all the sorrow and hardship this miserable life had cursed him with.

He could just leave, he assured himself. His mother would be fine without him, probably better off, and the few friends he had made over the years wouldn’t mourn or miss him for very long. He could just up and leave, he told himself over and over again. There was no reason to stay; this world didn’t have anything for him.

And he might have taken his own life that night, if not for the fact that Blitzkrieg had spared it. He wanted to know why. He needed to—he wasn’t good with unanswered questions. So he climbed out of the dumpster the next morning, and every night after that he wandered down to that same bar, hoping to cross paths with the old stallion one more time…

“…And when I finally saw the old geezer again,” Pinstripe explained, “I walked right up to him and asked him why he didn’t kill me all those nights ago.”

“His answer?” Discord asked.

“He never said—just led me inside, bought me a hot meal, a cold drink, and started rambling about the ‘old country’.”

It was a fine story, Discord explained, but it wasn’t enough to sate his appetite for vicarious drama. He still wanted here about the gang life—about the violence, the luxury cars, the expensive prostitutes. The sharp suits and the witty one-liners delivered by gruff, chain-smoking, streetwise tuffs with pistols hidden under their long, black trench coats.

“My life wasn’t a movie.” Pinstripe laughed and gave Discord’s nose a flirtatious nuzzle.

“But all that violence and crime and freedom… It must have been…romantic,” said Discord, his lips and tongue fondling that last word as it left his mouth.

“Nah, it wasn’t anything like that. It was actually pretty dull up until I met The Prankster and her gang.”

Discord’s face lit up like child’s on Hearth’s Warming Eve. “You met The Prankster!”

“Yeah, she’s the reason I’m down here,” said Pinstripe with an odd kind of humor. “She killed—”

Before Pinstripe could finish his thought, Discord clasped his face and pressed his muzzle against the zebra’s, kissing him with bruising force. There was a brief moment of shock on Pinstripe’s part, followed by a much longer moment of bliss. He closed his eyes, tilted his head, and melted into the kiss, chasing away his loneliness with the magic hiding in Discord’s velveteen lips.

When the kiss ended, Pinstripe’s eyes fluttered open as if he were waking from a dream. “Wow… that was—”

“Inappropriate!” Discord interrupted. “Heinous! Egregious! Most grievous!”

“Okay, so I’m a little out of practice—”

“Oh no, dear, you were wonderful. It’s just—um—well you see…” Discord’s voice trailed off. He climbed out of the cauldron, dripping water as he walked to the opposite end of the room...

The bathroom, Pinstripe noticed for the first time, the realization aburt and jolting. He was in a bathroom, and he was sitting in a tub, not a cauldron. The fog clouding his mind had started to fade and suddenly his head throbbed with a stabbing pain.

“…I happen to be a married stallion,” Discord finished after clearing his throat.

“What?” Pinstripe started to pursue Discord, but a sharp pain lanced through his side as he tried to climb over the tub’s lip. The shock of it kicked the air from his lungs, and he clutched his side, fighting for breath as he slid back into the water. With a groan, he tried again, this time he managing to haul himself over the tub’s edge. He tried to stand, only to find his back legs couldn’t support his weight. He fell on his seat, then, feeling woozy, tipped over onto his side.

“Careful, careful,” Discord fussed as he kneeled at Pinstripe’s side. “You shouldn’t be up and about just yet.”

Pinstripe let out a rumbling bellow as the ache in his midsection worsened. He touched a hoof to his side, expecting to find a mark there, though, he wasn’t sure why.

A fit of strangled coughs erupted from his throat, beating the air from his lungs with thudding force. He curled into a ball and shut his eyes, hugging himself tight. His body convulsed and cold sweat spilled from every pore in his skin.

“Oh dear,” said Discord, “It seems your body is reacting adversely to the potion.”

“I-It hurts…” Pinstripe breathed. “Make it stop…”

Discord sat down on his haunches and pulled Pinstripe into a sitting position, placing the zebra’s rear in his lap. A striped back met a cobalt blue chest, and Pinstripe could feel Discord’s heartbeat as the chaos lord held him close.

“You’re okay,” said Discord. His tinkling voice tickled Pinstripe’s eardrum, and the sound alone eased much of the zebra’s pain. “It won’t hurt for much longer, I promise.” He gave the zebra a reassuring squeeze.

They stayed like that for several minutes: Pinstripe shaking and sweating, Discord squeezing and cooing and pouring soft words into a frightened mind. When the shaking finally stopped, Pinstripe’s body went slack, and Discord laid him down on the tiled floor, a mother’s worry present in his eyes.

Now the dreamy fog had lifted completely. The mystery of the afterlife faded along with the magic of closeness, and once again Pinstripe found himself lying on his back, suffering as he stared reality in its bleak face.

“Who are you?” Pinstripe groaned, gazing up at the petite earth stallion. His voice was weak. His head was still pounding, but the pain in his side was gone.

The pony whom Pinstripe had mistaken for Discord stood up straight and batted his eyelashes. “Doctor Stephen Scope,” he said with a delicate curtsy, “at your service.”