A straight beam shot out of Church's eyes, hitting Discord right in the chest, sending him frying into the wall. Discord let out a tired groan and he got off the ground, a visible burn mark on his body. Discord chuckled weakly and patted off the burn mark as if it was a thin veil of dust. As he looked back up to speak, he suddenly found himself being tackled by Church, who slammed him into the wall again, knocking the wind out of him. As Discord climbed off the ground again, Church's horn began to glow and he lifted him into the air.
"Enough." Luna said quickly, trotting forward to interfere. "You need not harm him."
"Thank you, Luna." Discord wheezed as he made a swatting movement with his hand, hitting Church to the side and into some of the shards of glass, making Church release him. "You're very rough around the edges, Churchy."
"Because I'm tired of your games!" Church growled, looking at his wings as they straightened out. "I just want to fucking end this so I can move on!"
Discord rolled his eyes as Church launched himself at Discord. Due to him not having used wings before, Church veered off to the side and missed Discord, much to the antagonists amusement.
"Oh, that was lovely, please do it again." Discord begged.
"Both of you, cease your fighting." Celestia commanded, stepping next to her sister to intervene with the scuffle.
"Celestia, may I just say I'm actually slightly happy to see you no longer in stone?"
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Church snarled, jumping at Discord again, this time hitting him in the chest. "Now can you kindly go fuck yourself?"
"Now that's not very nice." Discord muttered, disappearing out from underneath Church just to reappear a few feet away from him. "Now Church, tell me. Why are you so sure that I'm the bad guy here?"
"Oh my fucking god, if you say all you're doing is trying to have fun one more time."
"No, I know you know that I am only trying to have fun." Discord said slowly, eyes calculating Church. "I simply mean how do you know that they aren't the bad guys?"
"Because I know I can trust them." Church muttered.
"Really now?" Discord asked, creating a bubble that surrounded everyone excluding the Princesses. "Well how about we find out just trustworthy your friends are."
"And how will you do that?" Church asked.
"Oh, just by refreshing her memory." Discord smiled, shooting a beam of magic straight at Twilight. When it hit her she let out a shudder and began coughing. "Let's see, how long ago did you guys come here? Eh, never mind, I don't need to know the exact date. Twilight, tell us about your first true report to Celestia."
"Dear Princess Celestia, I still don't fully understand why it was necessary for us to stop with our friendship reports to send you notes about these stallions." Twilight gasped as she clenched her eyes shut, feeling pinches of pain in her brain from the intrusive spell that forced her memories to the surface. "Then again, you are the Princess, and I am sure you have your reasons for making us do this. Sorry for rambling. Anyways, this Church stallion seems to be very... troubled, to say the least. A few hours ago he told me about most of his life. It was filled with nothing but violence, betrayal, heartbreak. He even told me his friends were his enemies, and if that doesn't tell me he's not to be trusted, then I don't know what does. I will explain more about his past to you in the letters to come, but for now I need to go to bed. I'll need a lot of rest to be in the right mindset to try and gain his full trust. Hopefully then we'll be able to prevent any damage they may cause. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle."
"Well?" Discord asked with a cheshire grin.
"That's not her. She would never do that." Church said hopefully, giving Discord a weak glare. He then turned to Twilight. "Would you?"
"I..."Twilight started, then looked away ashamedly, not wanting to lie to him.
"Would you?" Church repeated, more forceful.
"Church, I'm sorry, but I have a-"
"Fucking Christ." Church scowled. "So that love garbage was just that, huh? Something you did to get in my head? Trying to make me feel bad for you just to see if you could?"
"Church, it's not like that."
"Then what is it like? Because I'd sure as hell would like to know if all you were doing was just trying to hurt me."
"You're my friend, I never meant to hurt you."
"If I'm your friend then why didn't you tell me? And how many of these fucking reports did you send to her?" Church asked.
"She does not have to answer to you, Church." Celestia said firmly.
"Celestia, would you kindly shut the fuck up before I make you?" Church snapped, but did not turn to look at her, choosing to keep his eyes on Twilight. "How many letters did you send?"
"I'm not-"
"Twilight, tell me how many fucking letters you sent." Church commanded painfully, making her flinch.
"A-about ten." Twilight stuttered, looking at the ground.
"And how about the rest of you?" Church asked, looking around at the others.
"There was probably about fifty reports between them all." Celestia said quietly.
"I knew this place was too good to be true." Church growled, aiming his horn at Celestia.
"Holy shit, dude. Calm down." Tucker muttered in disbelief.
"Calm down? Calm down? Why the hell should I calm down? They lied to us! All this time we thought we could trust them, but all they did was stab us in the back!"
"Boy, we knew they were watching us." Sarge grunted.
"Yeah, we did, but I didn't know that they were forcing themselves to be our friends just to get in our heads!" Church said, voice slightly deeper, more focused than before. "That friendship they've been selling us has just been a ruse. They never wanted to be our friends! They were forced into it by that sun bitch up there."
"Is that true?" Grif asked, looking at Fluttershy, but she looked away from him.
"See? They don't want to tell you the truth! They deceived us to turn us to their side and were probably never going to tell us!"
Grif looked at Church and then hung his head slightly. Then, looking back up, he squinted at Church, shook his head and walked next to Fluttershy. Sarge lifted his brow as Grif stood next to her staring ahead, then shrugged and joined him.
"As far as I'm concerned, they were in the right to do it. We just came out of nowhere, fought with each other in front of them and then were given to them to watch without a days notice. Now I'm not sure about you, but I would find it pretty damn hard to trust someone if I were in their hooves. Hell, I still barely trust any of you guys and I've been with you for years!" Sarge said as he stepped next to Applejack, then glanced at her with a dry smile. "Hell, I was pretending to be their friend just so I could stab them in the back later."
"What?" Applejack asked seriously.
"Heh, don't be a hypocrite AJ." Sarge chuckled. "You may not have known how dangerous we were, but we didn't know how dangerous you were either."
"Shut up!" Church yelled, only to slam his eyes shut as he began to feel a migraine coming on. "We need to go back. This place isn't worth our time."
"Son, how is this different from learning we're simulation troopers?" Sarge asked. "This is our home now. What do we have to go back to?"
"Wake the fuck up. This isn't our home. We'll never find a home. The only thing we'll find is more people that will betray us. I've had just about enough. Now tell me, whose side are you on?" Church inquired, looking at the other soldiers. "Mine, or theirs?"
"Church, you're seeing sides where there aren't any." Tucker said firmly, walking next to Rainbow Dash while Simmons walked next to Rarity.
"Caboose?" Church asked harshly to the dark blue stallion.
Caboose lowered his head and quickly backed away from Church, not liking seeing him like this.
"I see what this is. I should have seen it since the beginning. I guess I did know what it is, but I was hoping it wasn't." Church said quietly, taking a step back from the others. "I thought you guys had actually changed. Became more trustworthy. More dependable. I was wrong. You guys can't change. This is just another god damn simulation. None of this is real."
"It is real, Church." Tex said quietly. "Now come on, you're getting angry over nothing."
"What? I'm getting angry over nothing?" Church asked with a rough laugh. "No, I'm getting angry over everything. I'm tired of going through all this shit and be expected to sit back and take it."
"You're not expected to do anything, Church. Now please. Just stop this. I don't want you to become something that you hate." Tex said softly before lowering her head sadly.
"Allison..." Church said breathlessly, watching as Tex walked next to the others. Church shook his head and closed his eyes, legs shaking. "I guess I really can't trust anybody..."
"Church, you can trust us. We're your friends." Caboose reasoned.
"No, Caboose. No. I don't have any friends." Church disagreed as he looked back up, eyes brilliantly red. "All I have are problems that need to be solved."