Princesses of Equestria

Chapter 17: Save Her

One and all, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony were helplessly ensnared by a magical curse that turned their own inner darkness against them.

"Huh. Déjà vu," said Discord. He was able to say this because he was not, in fact, ensnared.

See, the thing about growing up as an orphan in hell is that it teaches you to be constantly vigilant. Let your guard slip for a single solitary moment, and whoopsy daisy! Unspeakable demonic aberrations are now chewing you up.

Or rather, they're now spitting out the indestructible taffy that you've transmogrified yourself into to avoid being chewed up.

For as long as Discord could remember, he'd had a gift for channeling the powers of chaos, and for as long as he could remember, he'd kept a measure of those powers running on autopilot, permanently enhancing his matchless physique with protective enchantments potent enough to repel all manner of bites, burns, lacerations, cuts, jabs, stabs, stings, poisons, drowning, crushing, blunt traumas, sharp traumas, explosive traumas and, of course, magical traumas.

Fireballs, earth balls, sunbeams, moon beams, thunderbolts, laser bolts (though he was still working on the dreaded Friendship laser), aeromancy, necromancy, pyromancy and, most recently, phobomancy.

"Well played, Armonia," Discord muttered.

Like everypony else, he hadn't detected the trap until it had already been sprung. A fire in a cave cast lots of shadows. Who'd take the trouble to count them, and realize there were too many?

Unlike everypony else, Discord hadn't fallen into a nightmare-wracked stupor when the extra shadows touched Spike's blaze, and filled the cavern with venomous mist. Instead, Discord's automatic defenses flared up, coating him in a mist-proof forcefield; skintight, and complete with air filter, astronaut helmet, and choco-rain sippy straw.

Discord sipped some, but it didn't taste particularly sweet. Probably because his traveling companions were petrifying while he was procrastinating.

"I'm sorry ..."

"Don't leave me ..."

"Spike ... come back."

"Mywingsmywings!"

"Stop laughing ..."

"Too late."

"Not yet it isn't, Jappleack." Concentrating hard, Discord gathered chaos to his fingertips. "A simple industrial grade evaporation hex ought to suffice. Just need to calculate the exact pony to mist ratio. Wouldn't want to accidentally evaporate you after all." Discord counted his targets, and came up one short. "That's odd. Where's ..."

"Look at what you've done to them, Discord." Two merciless blue eyes Stared into his soul.

"I've done no such—" Déjà vu struck twice. "Actually, I suppose I did something vaguely similar once, but I'm a changed draconequus now."

"You're lying again. You always lie!" Discord's only friend slapped him in the face! Packed a wallop too, since her half-petrified limb was basically a hoof-shaped rock club. A regular pony would have had their jaw broken. Discord petulantly snapped his back in place.

"Lying? Well, somepony certainly is."

Snap. A half-petrified Staring pegasus melted into the shadows from whence she'd come. Discord gestured rudely at them. "It'll take more than a puff of phobomancy mist to reduce me to a stony heap, Armonia!"

"We're not friends anymore, Discord."

"Course not. I'm friends with the real Putterlie ..." Discord tried again. "Nuttereye?"  He angrily slapped palm to brow. "Shuffletie?" Could he ever get her infernal name right? "... Flutterguy?"