Silent Voracity
Summary: Cozy Glow's scheme had an unintended consequence: The End of the World. Discord saves what he can, bringing mmany species to a less kind and harmonious world. The survivors, have been altered: Physically, mentally, and magically. Now Discord must help these new races of "demihumans" make their place in a misery driven world. War, Death, and everything the New World is known for.
Discord tapped his claws impatiently on his forearm.
That had been his main activity for a month now.
He sat upon the railing of one of Canterlot Castle's many balconies, arms crossed and tail wrapped around it loosely. He was looking out over the great plains far below the mountain city and into the distant horizon; until recently, a grand view and beautiful sight for most beings.
With a glance to his left, he spied the city proper. It was bustling with activity, crammed with "visitors" from all over the lands. Any other time, one would guess some major social event or holiday was about to begin, attracting the various foreigners.
One need only look up into the sky to know that wasn't the case. The sky was red, with deadly and slowly twisting rifts of blazing orange cutting enormous gashes into the sky. Chasms marred the countryside, widening several inches a day with putrid ooze bubbling in their depth. Mount Canter was one of the mountains that were still standing and unburnt by wild mystic lightning.
Thanks in no small part to the Draconequus in question.
The old god exhaled as he murmured the same words he had many days ago.
Flashback
"This world is ending."
If the words didn't shock Celestia and Luna off their thrones, the disposition of the speaker did. The ever nonsensical Lord of Chaos looked up at them with the bearing of a weary elder, resigned in bitterness to the events to come.
"Discord, that's a rather peculiar joke of ill-taste, I must admit," Luna stated warily, rubbing a hoof to her chin.
"Trust me, I wish this was a joke, Luna," Discord stated bluntly, appearing as grim as he had always called Celestia.
"And what could possibly make you believe the world is in danger, Discord?" Celestia inquired with a concerned scowl as she approached her ancient nemesis.
"Because I am holding it back," Discord claimed boldly, fixing her with an irate stare before sighing heavily. "You remember Cozy Glow, I take it?"
"The filly that tried to absorb the magic of Equestria? Yes, we have been discussing when to transfer her out of Tartarus," Celestia mused before blinking in understanding. "Are you sayi-"
"What she and Tirek attempted to do tore at the seams of this world's magic," Discord elaborated with a dark look upon his face.
"But Twilight's students, they restored the magic, didn't they?" Luna pointed out in bewilderment and growing dread.
"They stopped the cause, they didn't fix the damage. If anything, the rebound of magic suddenly returning to the fractured system of the world might have accelerated things," Discord explained with a disturbing amount of patience as he waited for the two princesses to accept the truth.
"...What is happening, exactly, Discord?" Celestia all but demanded, her brain working frantically behind her wide eyes to find a possible solution.
"This world is more magic than it is anything else, Celestia," Discord answered, glancing off to the side and out a window; His eyes we distant, as if witnessing the future disaster right before him. "With magic in flux like this, it will tear the world apart. Storms that shatter mountains, the sky burning from astral magic absorbing too much from the sun, the earth swallowing and vomiting itself, frost so cold it will freeze and shatter towns in the same gust, volcanoes melting as lava churns into vapor and plasma. A million disasters all at once," Discord foretold with all the certainty and direness of a military general.
The diarchs paled at the apocalypse presented before them. "What can we do to fix this?" Luna asked softly.
Discord shook his head slowly. "I've already tried. Honestly, I have. But the damage is done. The world may repair itself in ten thousand years or it might crumble into oblivion. All I can do now is delay it."
"But there has to be-" Celestia started certainly, only for Discord to bring his head down to stare directly into her eyes.
"Celestia. This world, and everyone on it, is Going To Die," the Draconequus reaffirmed with brutal clarity.
Celestia looked ill, feeling the bile starting to rise in her throat as she tried and failed to comprehend it. The world, not just the kingdom to which she had dedicated her life but the entire world…gone. No ponies, no griffons, no dragon, no nothing.
"...How long?" Celestia whispered, begging beyond anything for a chance, a hope.
"A month, if that."
The solar monarch's foreleg buckled as she struggled and failed to prevent herself from retching.
"Sister!" Luna crouched and placed a comforting hoof on Celestia's back. Only the cultural shock of returning after a thousand years gave her the strength to not do the same, for now. Their senior in immortality watched on, not making a single comment or joke on Celestia's reaction. Luna shivered, knowing if this was a cruel prank, the punchline would have come by now. Steeling herself and hoping against hope, she looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Can you save us, Discord?" she asked softly.
Discord smiled a tired but true smile. "Not everyone, but I can give it a shot. But...I'm going to need some help if you want to save more than a few dozen," Discord explained with a nod.
"Discord!" Celestia forced out with a sob as she gave an imploring glare up at the Spirit of Chaos. "I will give you everything! If it is for even the slightest chance that ponyki- no, any of the creatures of this world have a future!" she swore desperately.
"I can steal them if need be, but...I kind of knew you'd want to save some of the rest," Discord mused, a scroll appearing in midair, unfurling before them.
The Alicorns went wide eyed. "They will never part with these items without proof," Luna said grimly.
"When the dragonlands are swallowed by the seas and the Frozen North shatters, I think they'll believe it."
End of Flashback
With a scowl, Discord watched the crowds in Canterlot shifting about like waves of ants. It had been nearly a week before most of the species believed that something was indeed wrong. But even then, many refused to believe the world was really ending or that the infamous Discord had a way of saving some of their people. Hence, many of them refused to give the requested items.
That was fine by Discord. He wasn't giving them a choice on that topic, just the opportunity to cooperate. Still, as much as Twilight had wanted to believe there was a solution, a way to save the entire world, she was even more opposed to the idea that they couldn't save at least some of as many of the species as possible. But there was only so much they could do and that was zero if the other nations wouldn't work with them.
"It's almost time."
Discord hardly realized it wasn't himself saying that, for he knew it was true.
But his voice wasn't that feminine.
He turned to meet his company and found Starlight Glimmer looking up at him with a solemn expression. "Gave up on trying time travel, I see?" he asked knowingly.
Starlight looked down, flinching back her tears, before she looked up at him again. "It was just like you said. Every time I tried, I just ended up in the middle of some disaster," she confirmed, her own failures weighing heavy on her withers.
"The effects of the magical disruptions followed you through time. I'm almost never wrong when I don't want to be. Thankfully, they cancelled out in the past when you returned to the present," Discord muttered to himself. "Any idea how it went?"
"I just got caught up with Twilight. Ember came with five adult Dragons, who are up in the Crystal Empire, while she is here with eighty young drakes and about two hundred eggs," Starlight began with some good news.
"Good thing those things never expire, or we'd both be missing out on having a certain little dragon for a friend," Discord mused half-heartedly before looking a tad frustrated. "Novo is staying behind."
"But sent her daughter to join the Egress," Starlight reminded gently. "She wanted to look after the survivors, just in case..."
"There's a hurricane that'll head right for Seaquestria and Mount Aris the moment I'm gone," Discord retorted apathetically before sighing. "Sorry. Holding back the End of the World pulls the fun out of everything."
"I can tell," Starlight acknowledged, not the least bit offended. "The Buffalo refused to come, but they know it's true."
"They have no desire to leave this world, even if it dies. I can respect that in some way," Discord all but waved off as he looked off into the distance. "To think, one little filly doomed the world."
"Discord, none of us saw this coming. Not you, the princesses, or even Harmony," Starlight assured before she smiled in gratitude. "But, thanks to you, we might just have a future still."
Discord remained silent for a moment longer before rising from his perch. "It's time."
Starlight silently stood by and followed him inside, steeling herself to not look back out over the ruin of the lands. She couldn't help wondering, too often...was that final timeline she saw with Twilight, that wasteland...had that been the true future all along, this world's future? She logically knew that wasn't true. Her spell hadn't been designed to go forward in time, but that didn't stop her doubts.
Doubts she'd keep to herself. A great many lives depended on this, the last remnants of everything they ever knew and she had her part to play.
Discord paid no heed to the troubled mare behind him as he entered the room. It was a good size, but mostly empty of furniture. Save a table…a crystal table; a crystal table that happened to double as a magic map, and was covered in several items.
Around it, four stood. Twilight's mane and tail looked like it hadn't been cared for properly in days and the stress of everything had loosened some of her wing plumage. Her eyes were bloodshot, but she had been through a six hour forced slumber to prepare for this.
Celestia and Luna at least looked better off, but that was only because their age granted their bodies an extra resistance to bodily damage caused by stress and fatigue of the mind. Still, their manes were notably drooped. Luna had long since taken on an expression of deep melancholy, whereas Celestia looked as she often did this past month: like she was lost, her eyes miles away.
Under normal circumstances, Discord would be amused to note that Starlight's appearance remained in good condition due to nothing more than to the habitual use of temporal stasis spells that kept her presentable at nearly all times. But these times were not normal.
"I take it everything is ready?" Discord asked plainly.
Twilight still shivered in the presence of a non-whimsical Discord, but answered nonetheless. "Y-yes, Cadence is waiting near the Crystal Heart as we speak."
Discord nodded in understanding, glancing over to the wall on his left, behind Celestia. "I take it you've said your goodbyes?" Discord mused without really asking, looking away from the Crystal Mirror.
Celestia nodded numbly. "Yes...after all this time...I can't expect her to leave another home. Not just to build a new one with us," Celestia answered in grieving resignation.
"She will be safe over there," Discord assured with a breath through his nostrils. 'Hopefully,' he added in his head. That human world and this were too tightly bound and alike to use it as an escape option. As it was, he couldn't be sure that world would be perfectly alright, but his plan should severe the connection regardless.
"I'm still wary. Are you sure these items will be enough, if even your power is not enough on its own?" Luna questioned in concern.
"I could have taken you four and over a hundred more," Discord answered without hesitation, raising his talon. "But with these amplifying and smoothing things over? Taking a couple crammed cities shouldn't be out of the question," Discord mused with a ghost of a smirk on his face as he levitated the Bloodstone Scepter of the Dragonlord to Luna and the reformed Pearl of Transformation to Starlight. "The Alicorn Amulet is in your castle?"
Twilight nodded, still very mixed feelings about that. She knew why Discord made it a rule that she and her friends all be in Canterlot for this. Canterlot was the only real guarantee he was making. Everything else was up to the odds. "I still can't believe you anchored it to the castle and fused half of Flurry Heart's magic into it," she murmured in amazement.
"Yes, well, at least she'll be less of a hoofful," Discord quipped absently as he held the Staff of Sacanas, the weapon of the Storm King.
"The map links you to the cities, anchoring them to you for the Cosmic Ejection," Starlight recounted to herself. "The mirror can be used to create a cosmic rift, lowering the power needed to make our exit. The Staff acts as a guiding rod in the process, so we don't get scattered across space and time all over the cosmos. The Bloodstone Scepter should help...keep things from getting in mid-travel. The Amulet will help boost the Tree to shield Ponyville; Cadence will be charging the Crystal heart with Shining Armor's shield reinforcing it to protect the Crystal Empire. Twilight supercharges the map, Celestia holds open the rift, Luna feeds the Staff, and...why is this important, exactly?" Starlight asked in confusion, holding up the pearl.
"Trust me, you'll understand by the time we're done" Discord assured with a wry smirk as he floated over the map and raised his talons once more, holding up the last set of items. "It really is the End of the World, if you're letting me use your precious baubles...Harmony," Discord mused as the Elements of Harmony all shined brightly and circled him. "And these six to amply everything."
The three Alicorns and one time traveler looked on with wide eyes as they felt the magic of the Tree and the Draconequus flowing through and to one another freely. The six gems took on an unnatural and intense glow as they blazed with the combined might of the two greatest forces this dying world had ever seen.
"When I start, I won't be able to hold back the devastation anymore," Discord warned with a scowl. "We buck this up, everyone loses."
"We understand, Discord," Celestia vowed. If she had hands, they'd probably be bleeding from her own grip now.
Meanwhile
"'Cuse me, pardon me," Applejack grunted as she squeezed by a batpony and a particularly large griffon. The two barely acknowledged her, moving out of the way as if on instinct.
It probably was, Applejack decided, gazing up on the formally opulent streets of Canterlot. It had been once the home of the elite, the powerful, the rich, and so on. The streets were rarely crowded, despite the large population of the city. Now it was cluttered with bodies. Everywhere you looked, there was some group or another sitting where they could; huddled together, as if afraid to lose each other in this ever shifting crowd. A valid fear Applejack herself had at times.
It was just as bad outside the city, in the fields of grass on the mountain, were camps as far as the eye could see, and the Dragon Den, as they called where they kept all the dragon eggs, guarded by no less than fifty adolescent drakes.
It pained Applejack to see so many torn from their homes to live on the streets, even some of her kin, but it couldn't be helped. The nobles and the castle had taken in a great many, but even they only had so much room. The panic had long bled out of the majority of them. Now there was just a fearful resignation as they were given clear view to the world's ending, all the way up on this mountain.
Better here than out there when everything went bottoms up, she mused while making her way to what had been an area to sit on the grass to look out over the edge of Canterlot and onto the horizon. Now it was largely where everypo- everyone came to use the bathroom. Thankfully, most tossed it over the side, keeping the smell pollution limited. And she had smelt worse on the farm.
She trembled in her bones as she took it in for the millionth time; the gapping maws of the earth that had once helped grow her crops and the searing and tearing twists of the sky that fed them. She looked out east. She could see patches of the Everfree burning from here. Why the fire didn't spread, she was blissfully ignorant of, but she was grateful they didn't reach Ponyville.
"...I hate this," she murmured through grit teeth. She knew, she knew it was selfish. That the same thing was at stake for everyone, but she hated the reality she was forced to face.
They were going to lose their world and a lot of people. There were a lot of people trying to get in still, but there just wasn't room. There was barely space on the roads to bring food and supplies out to everyone. Most had taken to the perilous idea of finding or even making space on the mountain itself in hopes of getting a ride.
She took a deep breath, remembering not to use her nose here. Everything was fine...as it could be. Applebloom and her friends were with Rarity and Fluttershy. She was having a hard time finding Big Mac after he returned from helping Granny Smith up the mountain, but she had checked with the guards: he had come back, it was hard missing him.
She wanted to hope, to tough it out, but all she felt like doing was crying. They were really giving up on this world, on Discord's word no less? But she had seen his eyes, eyes with the harshest honesty she would ever know. And she had seen it, was seeing it right in front of her. But it still felt like they had given up. All of them: Discord, the princesses, even Twilight!
As a mare like herself, Applejack despised the notion of anyone claiming it was impossible to fix something or make it work. She would have given up on a lot of things on the farm a long time ago if she thought like that.
"Sis."
Her head shot up and her ears turned to the voice long before her eyes did. "Mac!" she cried in relief as she barreled over to her brother and wrapped her forelegs around his neck in what was almost a tackle hug.
The brick wall of a stallion smiled, patting her on the back as he straightened her Stetson hat on her golden head. "Rough?"
"Like Applebucking season three times over," Applejack confirmed with a chuckle.
Big Mac smiled softly before scrunching his eyebrows. "...Whole city stink like this?" he asked in mild concern.
Applejack's chuckle turned sheepish. "We're kind at the unofficial emergency public bathroom, Brother," Applejack informed awkwardly. The red giant blinked, calmly looking around himself to make sure he hadn't stepped in something unsightly to Applejack's continued amusement. "So, where's Granny? Did she have any trouble getting up the mountain?" Applejack asked in concern.
Big Mac didn't answer, his ears drooping as he looked away. "...Nope," he answered softly.
"Huh? What's wrong, Mac? Where is she?" Applejack pressed, scrunching her eyes.
"She's not coming, Sis," Big Mac answered soberly, hanging his head in grief.
Applejack held in a gasp, her heart ready to leap out of her chest. "T-that's fine, Big Mac. Getting up he-here might have been a bit much for the old gal. Sh-she'll be fine in Ponyville," she said, more to herself, begging to believe that was true.
"Applejack," Big Mac called, his voice bold but sorrowful. "She isn't coming with us. She...she says she's stayin behind," he stressed, tears threatening to reach his eyes.
Applejack stared and stared and stared as those words echoed numbly in her ears and her heart defied the obvious meaning. What did that mean? If didn't she come with them, that meant she stayed behind in Ponyville, so why state that twice? And if she stayed in Ponyville, she should still get to the New World if it di-
Her pupils shrunk and her mouth went dry. "...No," she whispered as denial set in. "Nononononononononono!"
"I know, Sis," Big Mac consoled as he wrapped his hooves around her, only for the mare to wretch out of his embrace.
"Why the buck did you leave her?!" she roared at her brother. She knew he didn't deserve it, but she didn't care. Not right now.
"Neither of us could make that mare do anything she plum didn't want to, and you know it," Big Mac retorted without any spite or rage, taking the verbal lashing. He thought worse of himself on the trip here.
"You could have stayed! You could have made her stay in the house until we got there!" Applejack accused, barely able to see through her own tears.
Her words stabbed at her own heart, knowing that she would risk losing a brother and her grandmother in that scenario.
"I tried...was gonna," Big Mac murmured, looking away. "But...she told me I couldn't leave my little sisters without a brother...and she was right," he explained, his heart weighing heavy on his words.
Applejack was about to continue on when she smelled it. Felt it. Heard it.
The pungent, sweet smell assaulting her nostrils.
A comfortable, unseen weight lifting off her.
The deafening sound of a city suddenly gone silent.
Her brother must have sensed it too, as they both just stood there with eyes slowly going wide. As one, they and all others began to peer outward again, towards the disaster they were all trying to escape.
There was a simple warning from Discord that had spread to every creature in the exodus cities: It would get worse before it got better.
After a month of this, it was hard to imagine it being worse.
With a crack of doom, they know how wrong they were.
The ground lurched under them, nearly sending Applejack sprawling with many others. Cries of shock and horror began to ring in her ears, but they were far off as she watched what unfolded before her.
The deep gashes in the earth roared as they tore themselves wider and wider, with geysers of putrid ooze flooding into the heavens and raining down on the world below. The magical flames blazed to life, rapidly spreading as a great plague upon the trees and the grass. The orange rifts in the sky twisted more severely and spider webbed as if they were tearing it apart. They all soon vanished as clouds formed from nowhere, bringing arcane lighting that left great craters where they struck and dozens of spiraling tornadoes that upended the very ground itself.
In the far north, Yakyakistan found itself engulfed by spikes of ice, snapping out from the ground. Too cold and too solid to break and even as the Yak's stubbornly tried, they realized all too late that the chill had seeped so far into their bones that they were becoming statues of frozen flesh, many shattering themselves in their death throes. Prince Rutherford, in his final moment, broke through a single spike. He froze solid in his moment of victory and hope.
Down below, the jungles of the south were steadily being overrun by a flood as the entire region seemed to collapse into itself. Daring Do sat atop of a temple, barely above the new sea level and almost blissfully ignorant of the events as she shared a drink with Ahuizotl, somber laughs and jokes of past adventures shared between the two adversaries.
Further beyond that, the many unsavory denizens of Klugtown desperately tried to get to an aerial transport of any kind as they and their city began to sink into the sands. Capper covered his ears to try to block out the terrible sound that was screams drowning in sand.
The feline lands of Abyssinia could only be so lucky. They found themselves surrounded by twisting sandstorms that glowed hot; sand became like glass. The Abyssinian Queen and King desperately embraced each other in their throne room, trying to block out one another's agony as the fragments tore through flesh and buildings alike, the tormented screams echoing in the wind.
The Abysmal Abyss yawned widely as an all-consuming mouth, spreading in all directions as it made to swallow land and sea whole. The griffons were forced to flee to the skies and watch as their home and kingdom crumbled into the deep chasm below. And as Greta fled to the sky, it was all she could do to ignore the smell of burning flesh as great jets of lava spat up as if to devour them.
Queen Novo had barely time to order her subjects to flee before the mountain was torn apart by the oncoming hurricane. For all her power, she could only stare in horrified fascination as the rubble never splashed into the water, the winds of such force that boulders flew and even Seaquestria far below was upended by the force of it.
Cities across Equestria fell and crumbled before wind, lightning, fire and earthquakes. Ponies fled and hid, but there was nowhere the disaster would not reach, no place or power that could protect them now.
All of this, in ten seconds.
Applejack barely recognized the screams as she bore witness to the death throes of a planet. All she could do was look to her brother, who in turn, looked to her. An eternal second past between them, with one unspoken line of conversation: This was the end.
With renewed tears, Applejack rushed to her brother as they both embraced for dear life and shut their eyes.
And then it stopped, as the deafening quiet returned. But where fear rang in the first silence, this one resonated with hope.
As one, the siblings slowly opened their eyes and looked up.
A great barrier of bright blue and dark violet surrounded the city like a cocoon. The horror of the outside world fell muted against it.
As if struck by understanding, Applejack's head lurched to the castle.
They might actually survive this.
Meanwhile
"Celestia! Do it now!" he yelled to the solar Alicorn, knowing that this situation could not hold indefinitely.
Without hesitation, Celestia turned to the Crystal Mirror. With blazing white eyes, she blasted the mirror with a ray of solar magic.
"Like Tartarus the world ends in a whimper!" Discord grunted with a harsh scowl as he held the Staff of Sacanas at the ready. The elements floated in pairs at equal distant edges of the map, one duo pointed away from the balcony. The gems were now encased in small pillars of light, the same light as the barrier surrounding the mountain city. And the other locations as well, he knew.
Twilight was kneeling by the map, pouring her magic into it while Luna and Starlight stood by with sweat on their brows as they waited to do their part.
As a testament to its creation, the mirror held up for nearly five seconds, cracks creeping along its surface, until it burst open, revealing a roaring vortex that, for an instant, threatened to suck them all in.
But only for an instant, as Discord surged his power into the staff, aiming it into the now uncontrolled rift in space and time, zapping it with thunderous might and making all the mares in the room shield their eyes.
Discord smirked like his usual self for the first time in weeks. This was utterly insane. Any rationale entity would use the staff to contain or close the rift. He, on the other claw, was doing something very opposite.
The howling ceased as Discord glanced up to the ceiling and past it. "This is where the real fun begins," Discord stated ominously as he twirled the staff upside down and stabbed the crystalline end into the center of the map.
All at once, Discord felt his perspective shift, his sense of self permeating throughout Canterlot in a limited likeness to omnipresence. He was everywhere in these shields, he saw and felt everyone. From the small child crying in their mother's embrace to the greatest of warriors and leaders standing helpless before the apocalypse. It was as if he was becoming one with these locations.
He turned his collective senses upward, gazing past the DiscHarmonic barriers. High in the sky was the vortex; only a thousand times larger, akin to a great leviathan breaking through the sky like a cosmic maelstrom.
He felt Harmony too. They were connected rather intimately, not to put too lewd a context to it. It was such a young but powerful existence. A shame this didn't happen in another thousand years. The two of them then might have been able to stop this, but that was neither here nor there. However, he did need her help on a little something more.
High above Canterlot, a burning image of a pink heart made its appearance, before dissolving into a paradoxically peaceful inferno. Propelled by the wills of the Tree and the Draconequus, it was sent rushing to Ponyville, covering its barriers with an extra layer of protection.
Discord thought it would be a lot longer before he ever felt Harmony expressing gratitude to him, but it was there now. He returned it in a polite gesture, keeping his attention on the portal. With as many odds in their favor as possible, Discord knew there was only one thing to do...
Blank white tendrils emerged from the vortex; three large ones and then many lesser limbs. They came plunging down onto the protected cities, as if to crack them open like eggs. Instead, they molded and twisted around the tops. Shock and trepidation rocked every soul as their visions started to fill with white until everything was just in outlines and even that soon faded into oblivion.
Once the cities had visually become one with the otherworldly appendages, the tendrils appeared to both retract and fade, rushing away back into the abyss as quickly as they had arrived.
On a hill near Ponyville, two old ponies watched the mass cosmic migration with a sense of peace about them.
"That old snake better take good care of my kin," Granny Smith murmured fondly, tears of hope leaking as she knew in her heart they would make the journey safely.
"My kin too," Grand Pear reminded gently towards his old rival. "Think they'll be okay though, wherever they go?"
"Their a tough lot. If they're not okay, they'll try to make it okay," Granny Smith answered knowingly, looking to the empty plains where Ponyville had been. "Shame, always wanted to be buried on my farm."
Grand Pear chuckled as he stood. "Shall we?" he asked, motioning to the raging disasters that would, no doubt, soon overcome them.
Granny Smith smiled in acceptance as they made their way to their own ends. "Yeah, it's been too long since we've seen our children...,"
Meanwhile
True teleportation has only two speeds, for the passenger of the transportation: Instant, and Almost Instant. Instant is simple, straight forward and perfected. You arrive across a great distance in what feels like an instant. This might not be true for the world around them, but no time passes for the teleported.
Almost instant is an entirely different experience. The length of time within is unknowable. Not enough to truly matter, but enough to comprehend and know what is happening to yourself. That their bodies, their minds and their very souls have been broken down and fused into pure, raw magic. They and all with them are formless and laid bare to one another in unperceivable ways. For in that moment, all are one and yet they are themselves, like a collection of puddles forming a lake or sea of essence.
It is glorious and overwhelming. It would be easy for one to lose their sense of self in this great rush. But Luna didn't have that luxury. She focused hard on the image of herself, clutching the Bloodstone Scepter with all the strength in her hooves and in her magic. She could...feel terrible things trying to intrude on them from between the spaces of reality. What they were, she would never dare ask, but she took comfort in their steadfast avoidance of Discord at the "head" of their stream.
Was he one of them? Or was he something even they feared?
She didn't know and it didn't matter. All that mattered was survival. All that mattered was pushing away Applejack's fresh grief, the heart wrenching tears of Fluttershy over all the souls they could not save, Ember's instinctive rage of dragons in a helpless situation and much more that tried to wander unknowingly into her mind. All that mattered was her hold on the staff and not imagining herself bleeding from her mouth and ears and eyes and- She seared away one sneaking, slimy, pincer of a thing. She shivered before feeling Harmony washing over her and banishing the perceived wounds and image of such.
Her mind latched onto Harmony for an instance to make the inquiry: Was everything going alright? Was this really working?
The image given in answer was Discord. She saw him on the map, staff stabbed into it...and using it to direct them through this unknowable reach of unexistence. And yet, he was not there. Rather he was also out and ahead of them, as if the tip of the blade to cut them an opening between realities.
She could see his gaze and it was long. But his face...was smirking. It was triumphant.
That was a good a sign as any could give.
They were coming close now and everything within their...vehicle grew greater in volume. The wailing of Celestia's soul for all that was lost, the terror in Twilight's mind at all the possible ways this could fail, the uncertainty of Starlight's heart and the cacophony that was every soul's hopes and fears and grief echoing though the sea of magic they had become.
Never in eternity would she have thought Discord's presence would be as much as a steady rock as Harmony's.
She could feel it, the world they were coming to. It was...strange. She expected more resistance or trouble with this leg of the journey, but it was almost as if they were expected…they, or someone else.
That thought halted and died as a feeling of slowness came over her existence. She squinted as she could once more see lines again. Faint and thin, they thickened until color itself began to fade back into reality. Smudges became blurs until her eyes adjusted and sharped. She only barely registered she was back in the same room before she collapsed to her knees, using the scepter as a support. She panted deep, long, clear breaths of clean air. Her digits clutched so hard her knuckle tu-
Wait.
Luna blinked as she realized something was...off, different. Looking to the Bloodstone Scepter, she found that it was not magic or hooves holding it, but hands that were not unlike a minotaur or centaur would have. Strangely, they did not feel awkward or strange to her mind. It was as if she was born with them. Looking down, her physical senses went into overdrive. Her body was...different. It was still her own, but her rear hooves were gone as well, replaced by what Twilight described as "feet" once: Semi-flipper shaped ends to appendages that, like hands, were all flesh rather than being covered in keratin.
Glancing herself fully over, she found her body had changed from a quadrupedal unguligrade to a bipedal plantigrade. She still possessed her tail and, with some quick feeling, she determined her skull structure was all or mostly the same. More confusingly, there were two...globes of flesh on her chest. Teats, she believed, if those sensitive nubs were any indication; though, why they were so near her head instead of her pelvis, she wasn't sure. They were also quite large for some reason.
Even more bizarrely, she was covered in an admittedly beautiful black and silver dress. Her black regalia had been reformed into bracelet-cuffs on her wrists and ankles and a necklace similar to a broad collar.
Shaking her head free of her confusion, she discovered her mane of stars was now normal cyan hair. Not surprising, giving how much magic was used. Ignoring that, she stood, completely comfortable with her new center of gravity somehow. She looked around and was relieved to find her comrades were all as well off as they could be.
Celestia was leaning against what remained of the mirror, the white of her attire almost blending with her fur if not for the lightest of blue tints, but accented by the golden accessories.
Twilight had her head rested upon the Map of Harmony, adorned in robes a purple darker than her coat, and accented with a sash of amber. To Luna, while royal, they appeared a bit more suited for a mage, fittingly enough.
Starlight was collapsed on her back and, apparently, got the most "normal" of attires with a sea green sweater and a magenta pair of pants that went down to her knees. She was also the only one of them sporting footwear, for some reason.
Luna's sigh of relief cut short in her mouth as her eyes went back to the map. There was the Staff of Sacanas, still impaled on it, but Discord was nowhere to be found. Her heart sped up a beat as she tried to locate the Draconequus. Thankfully, he was right behind her, but her calm shattered as quickly as it came, her dropping of the scepter grabbing the attention of her fellow mares.
It didn't surprise Luna or any of them, that Discord was still unchanged and unclothed. That was expected of him, the normal rules of anything never affected him without his consent, why would this be a change?
But that was the extent of happy thoughts. Discord was leaning again the back wall, near the door. By the cracks and dent around him, he had been launched into it before their senses had returned to them. He wasn't moving.
"Discord!?" Celestia cried in alarm as she rushed over to him with Luna. They both grasped one arm and gently pulled him out of the wall, bits of stone rolling off his back as they did. They made to sit him down, but Discord suddenly pushed his hindlegs up to stand.
"I'm fine," Discord grunted quietly as he opened one eye, smirking at them. "It will be...a long time before I can do something like that again."
"Discord, are you okay?" Celestia asked in concern as she gazed up into his red eyes.
"Did...did something go wrong?" Twilight asked, worry etching her every utterance as she treaded forward, occasionally glancing at the new forms of herself and the others.
Discord shook his head in assurance. "No, I knew what I was getting into when I decided all this," he assured fondly before glancing to the table, the quartet of women following his gaze.
There, perfectly still, were the stones that had been the Elements of Harmony. As if his gaze had a hidden force to it, they crumbled like sand sculptures.
"Harmony," Discord sighed heavily as they faded like dust in the wind. A long, solemn silence fell over the room.
"Did Harmony just...die?" Starlight whispered with wide eyes, not sure what to make of this.
"Hard to tell yet," Discord admitted with some measure of defeat in his voice as eyes went back to hi-
"Discord! Your wing!" Twilight yelled in surprise and dread.
"It's glowing!" Luna exclaimed, watching as the leathery wing glowed with an ethereal glow.
"Ahh, was wondering when that would start," Discord mused cheekily, barely looking upon the limb while golden specks began to float off him.
"Discord, are you...did you...?" Celestia tried to inquire with wide eyes, imagining the worst.
Discord smiled with a bit of playfulness. "Don't be so grim, my dear."
Celestia blinked as she realized Discord sounded... a bit like his usual self again. Staring into his red eyes, she didn't know if that was his truthful reassurance or his attempt at comfort for what was to come.
"As I said, I'll be fine," Discord promised as the glow spread to both wings, looking towards the balcony. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to see this New World of ours," he stated as he started to trudge forward. He leaned on Luna for support as he raised his lion paw up off of Celestia. The Staff of Sacanas creaked in its placement, nudging towards him before it was dislodged. Twilight and Starlight leaned away instinctively as the crystal-tipped staff shot into Discord's grip. He clutched it firmly and pulled himself out of the grip of the lunar princess before walking to the balcony.
With looks of uncertainty, the mares watched and followed after the Tyrant turned Savior
Meanwhile
Rainbow Dash stared uncomprehendingly up at the sky; the clear, pure, blue sky. How long had it been since she saw that? It had been weeks, but it felt like years. Years since it was safe to fly any true distance from the ground, since the encroaching doom felt more like imprisonment while counting down the days to a death sentence.
"Dash, you okay?"
The voice was far away in her ears, but it dragged her gaze back toward to..."Gilda?" she asked in confusion.
It was Gilda, the face and voice were undeniable, but her form was...two-legged, for some reasons. And she was wearing an open brown jacket for some more reasons. Her chest also seemed a bit bigger, but her white feathers naturally covered up whatever that might be.
"Yeah, weird, I know. Now don't dweeb out on me," Gilda prompted with an eye roll, reaching her yellow clawed hand out to help Rainbow up.
The prismatic pegasus arched an eyebrow at the gesture before realizing that the griffin wasn't the only one changed. Taking the offered appendage, she pulled herself up on her new limbs. First things first, she signed in relief when she found her wings right where the always had been. A bit bigger and the structure was modified to her form, but it was definitely her wings. Looking down, she scowled curiously as she found her body was changed much like Gilda's.
Albeit, she was a bit smaller in muscle mass and size, which didn't surprise her much. More curiously, she was clothed a bit more than her griffon friend. Thankfully, it was just a small top and what she guessed were short pants, both black. But weren't pants supposed to cover the thighs? Oh well, she didn't care. In fact, much more, and they'd probably affect her flying. At the very bottom, she spied a pair of sandals on her feet that went up to her thighs. They reminded her of ones she saw in school books about early or pre-equestrian Pegasi culture. Budkins? Caligs? Something like that.
She glanced and saw Gilda's hind...well, her legs had no footwear, showing off the claw tips of her feline digits.
All of that seemed irrelevant as she remembered the clear blue sky.
She looked up, turning her head every which way. There were ponies, changelings, young dragons, griffons, hippogriffs and more. All in a similar state of being: New, two legged bodies and some manner of clothing upon them. She turned back to Gilda, who was starting to look impatient, before glancing up again. "Is this real? Did we make it or did we just buck the bucket with the rest of the world?" Rainbow asked curiously, still in the midst of processing this.
"Oh, we're alive. Now come on, let's get a good look at the place," Gilda suggested with an understanding look as she spread her own wings- Rainbow idly noted they were a bit larger than her own- and took to flight. Before the griffon even had a chance to stop and wait for the pegasus, Rainbow was already flying past her. "Yep, she's still Dash alright," Gilda murmured with another eye roll as she made to follow after the speed demon.
Reality hit Rainbow like a gleeful brick. They made it, they were alive and they were safe! Yes, everyone else had died, but sorrow came after jubilation.
She seemed to hardly be alone in that thought as she rushed over Canterlot, seeing and hearing cries of happiness, screams of triumph, and plenty of people dancing or hugging one another. She saw Thorax spinning his brother around in a bear hug, Hoity Toity dancing with a Yak and she knew she saw a hippogriff and a dragon kissing somewhere.
For right now, these next few seconds, the reality of what they lost was forgotten in place of what they had gained. And before she knew it, Rainbow was at the edge of Canterlot and saw exactly what that was.
They were on the side of a mountain, which wasn't very surprising. In fact, she barely registered that being on any other landform was even a possibility. But not only was there a clear blue sky, but far down below was a vast forest that was all too similar to the Everfree; The leaves of trees for miles and far, far in the distance were green fields. It was all too easy to imagine that Ponyville might be down there, somewhere.
"We really made it," Rainbow whispered without really knowing it, soaking in all that she had missed: The wind in her feathers, the rays of the sun on her face, a much cleaner smell than the one to which she had been forced to grow accustomed. That made her glance down and wonder if the teleportation came with a city-wide clean up spell, because Canterlot did seem cleaner than it had been since everything started going to Tartarus.
In her glancing down, she realized she wasn't the only one taking in the sights. Hundreds of various creatures had taken to the air, looking around in awe at their new home, as were the wingless species, crowding near the edges to get a better look over one another.
"Okay, I'll admit it," Gilda said with a smirk on her beak as she hovered behind her childhood friend.
"Admit what?" Rainbow asked in surprise as she flapped to spin around.
"Ponies are pretty awesome," Gilda answered in feigned resignation.
Rainbow grinned sheepishly at that. "Yeah, well, we can't take too much credit he-" she started, only to pause as she heard a hush rolling over things, the amazed chatter of thousands dying down in mere seconds. Looking out, she saw why.
There, on the balcony was Discord the Draconequus. The only one of them unchanged, to her secret amusement and outward exasperation. The one to whom everyone here owed a great debt. All her misgivings about the former villain had dried in the past few weeks and were evaporating at this very moment.
"That's him, eh?" Gilda asked idly, knowing it could only be him.
Rainbow nodded, hearing his name whispered over and over again amongst the survivors. Yet, he didn't seem to notice them, staring out over the land with- "Wait. Something isn't right," Rainbow muttered as her eyes focused on him. It looked like he was just holding a staff, the same one the Storm King had wielded. But Rainbow was an athlete, among other things, which granted her certain insights into body language. Discord was holding it for support, as if he were injured or exhausted.
Very troubling thoughts, but not as much as what Gilda pointed out. "Does he always glow like that?" Gilda questioned doubtfully.
Rainbow blinked. That hadn't been her imagination? There were golden lights around Discord, slowly spreading over his...everything? "No, no he doesn't," Rainbow confirmed with dread.
Was Discord dying? She didn't know magic like Twilight or Starlight, but she knew this plan required power far beyond just the Alicorns, but had it actually been something too much for even Discord to pull off? A cold fear crept into her stomach at the thought of Discord perishing as a result of saving them. Yet she had a hard time imagining that defiant, pleased look on his face to be the gaze of a man heading for the grave.
Discord closed his eyes as his body became completely covered in light. His form seemed to warp and change for an instant before the coat of gold burst off him.
Discord still stood there, but a Draconequus no more.
Meanwhile
The Lord of Chaos hummed to himself as he took stock of his new form through his mind's eye. Having changed form on a dime in the past, subtly checking the makeup of his body was something he knew how to do very well. At first glance, he appeared to be an Alicorn, but as always, it wasn't that simple. His wings were leathery, more like a drake's than a bat's. His tail was wrapped around his waist like a belt, now more like a "normal" snake's as it was only four inches thick and barely five feet long. Upon his head were still two horns, but unlike before, they were both blue unicorn horns with one right below the other.
Other than that, he was essentially a grey Alicorn. He was a bit more muscled than he was used to, but he blamed that on his powers feeding into the earth pony aspect. And since Alicorns didn't get old and he couldn't be bothered to waste the mana on changing his appearance, he had a messy mane of black hair now. With some pleasure, he found his goatee was still there, albeit smaller. He was wearing an open brown overcoat and a pair of moss green walking shorts.
Good! The actual Alicorns could dress up all they wanted but he'd go casual, thank you very much.
"Discord! Discord! Discord!"
He was startled out of his self-inspection by the cheering of his name over and over again. He turned in surprise to seeing tens of thousands of creatures all gathered in the sky and at the edge of Canterlot, packed in for as far as the naked eye could see, all cheering him on. Even guards and occupants from inside the council were looking out windows and other balconies, chanting with the crowd.
He stared for a good long moment as he slowly smiled. It was nice to be praised, few could deny. Glancing to the side at the staff, he smirked; The Staff of Sacanas, of the Trickster. How fitting, he decided. He lifted it up, bathing Canterlot in a brief flash of golden light, accompanied by a sense of warmth. Everyone fell silent as they heard his voice wash over them:
"Welcome To Our New Home."
With a content sigh, he turned away as the cheers seemed to redouble, only to find the Alicorns and Starlight all staring at him. Celestia and Luna had the most owlish expression he had ever seen while Twilight's jaw just hung open with a faint coloring of her cheeks and Starlight Glimmer was now Starlight Crimsonface.
"...What?" he asked in confusion. His fly wasn't down, right?
No one answered for a second until Starlight did. "Since when are you hot?" she blurted out, covering her mouth instantly in embarrassment.
Discord scowled with a raised eyebrow before he remembered something. Alicorn power does actually manifest as proportionately enhanced looks, in attractiveness and/or intimidation. Given his remaining powers still outranked anyone in Canterlot- Oh. Riiiiight.
"Since I've been nerfed down to Alicornhood," he stated wryly as he laid the staff against his shoulder.
Author's Note:
Elllllo MLP and Overlord fans! Hope you all liked this, as I think this is the first time someone has actually substituted Nazarick with an entirely different base/group/etc. This is going to be a journey for every creature, including Discord himself.
So, yes, Discord saved the ponies, and some other species. As shown, not everyone came along. Some outright refused to believe they couldn't survive what was to come. If it isn't obvious, every creature was non-anthro before the teleportation, than they were Anthro in the New World- and clothed, that'll be explained later.
Overlord fans can probably guess where Canterlot is right now, everyone else don't worry- you'll figure it out with the characters, lol. They're not actually that far from where Nazarick would have been.
PS: Anyone from MLP is possibly in the New World unless they've stated/shown as being left behind.