It was the night of the Gala once more. War Heart’s second time going, not having any good memories of the last one. He kept his usual expression which many mistook for a look of slight anger. He wore his old suit that Rarity had tailored for him for his first time at the Gala. He looked at himself in the mirror, a sudden headache causing him to flinch and shut his eyes, showing himself flashbacks of Unex City in flames. He shook his head, trying to shrug it off.

“War Heart! We gotta go, the carriage is here!”, Dash called to him from the other room. Busy dealing with the kids.

“I’m ready.”, War Heart called back and walked into the shield hall where his family was waiting.

“Okay, let’s go, Pinkie is waiting for us.”, Dash told him as she herded the kids into the carriage where Pinkie was waiting inside. War Heart followed them into the Carriage. The ponies pulling the carriage took off, pulling it behind them.

A dark pony shaped figure awaited in the shadows by the house, “Oh, War Heart. It’s been too long…”, he said to himself as he followed in the dark and the trees.

It was a few hours before the Heart family got to the Gala. Air Heart felt like it was the longest ride ever. Arcana was too busy reading her latest book that she got from Twilight. Black Heart was just staring out the window, not making a sound, you wouldn’t realize he was there if you didn’t look for him. He would imagine what it would be like to be a Pegasus or unicorn like his sisters. He felt like he would never amount to his parents or his sisters, what with his father slaying dragons, his mother defeating Nightmare Moon, his sister Arcana becoming a magical prodigy, and Air Heart becoming top of her class in flight school he felt a bit like he was a disappointment to his family. He never told them this but he had sort of a reserved hatred towards his sisters, Air Heart especially with her mocking him from out of reach. Their parents never knew because he never told them about it, like the time he didn’t tell his mother that Air Heart knocked him over which cause his leg to be cut on a rock and bleed. He didn’t know what to expect at the Gala, but he wasn’t very hopeful.

The carriage pulled up to the Palace where Celestia resided. The Heart family all got out of the vehicle. The kids followed their parents to Celestia, who greeted them in her usual regal and enchanting voice.

“Welcome back, War Heart, Rainbow Dash.”, Celestia addressed them.

A brief memory of Celestia visiting War Heart some years ago flashed through his head, “Glad to be here… Your Majesty.”, War Heart replied with forced politeness.

The three children walked forward.

Celestia looked down at them, “I suppose these three are yours?”

Dash and War Heart nodded.

“That’s nice, have fun.”, Celestia said as she walked away to deal with other matters.

Black Heart already didn’t have a fondness for the princess, he didn’t like the fact she had both wings and magic and that she looked down on everypony else. His parents told him and his sisters to go and have some fun. Black Heart walked into the main room to hear somepony, or something that he couldn’t quite tell what it was. He looked around slowly, trying to figure out where the sound came from. “What was that?”, he asked himself. He then began to wander towards the doors to the garden, not wanting to be around everypony. He walked outside to see the starry night sky, admiring it for a moment before wandering around the garden. He made his way to the palace courtyard where many statues stood. He walked around them to see what they were depicting. He came across a peculiar one. It looked as if it were made of many parts of different creatures. It’s pose and face looked as if it were in a panic. Black Heart cocked his head to the side, “Why would they make a statue in such a silly pose…?”, Black Heart told himself.

“Because I hadn’t the foresight to strike a pose before they made me turn to stone.”, a voice told Black Heart, who jumped at the sudden sound.

Black Heart turned around and looked for the source of the voice.

“Up here, little foal. What? Never seen a creature of chaos before?”, The voice continued.

Black Heart looked to the statue, “You can… talk?”

“I‘m assuming one of the elements of harmony is starting to fade. Perhaps it‘s that marshmallow getting greedy, or the cowpoke telling a little white lie. I know something has done enough to allow me to speak even if it is somewhat limited. Say, how would you like to be friends?”

“I don’t know… Who are you?”, Black Heart asked.

“… Kids today, I must be losing my touch for ponies to not know who I am. I am Discord, master of chaos and disharmony. If you let me out, I will give you whatever you want.”

“How do I let you out?”

“I need to feed off the disharmony of others to overcome the power of harmony which put me in this position.”

A dark figure walked out of the shadows, “I think I can help there.”, he spoke in a monotone. He was an earth pony with white coat and dirty blonde mane. His eyes were ice blue and he looked straight at the statue.

“Oo, I can just feel the disharmony just pouring out if you, where are you from?”, Discord asked the newcomer.

“From a place where there is greed running rampant, violence is commonplace, nobody is kind to each other unless it suits them, murder, theft, arson, and everything else that is horrible comes into play where I come from.”, the newcomer explained.

“I think I like that world, maybe this one could use a bit of redecoration. Free me by showing me an act of disharmony. Do as you see fit.”, Discord instructed Black Heart before going silent.

Black Heart turned around to see the other Earth Pony was gone. He looked around for a second, trying to spot him.

“BOO!”, a filly’s voice shouted from a slight bit above Black Heart, startling him and causing him to jump away in fright.

Air Heart laughed at Black, “Scaredy Cat!”, she exclaimed in a mocking tone.

Black Heart looked at the ground, knowing his sister was right, that he was a coward.

“Are you going to sit there and let her mock you? Why don’t you do something, it’s so boring if you don’t retaliate.”, Discord’s voice floated through Black’s mind.

Black clenched his teeth for a moment, then glared at his older sister.

“What? You gonna cry?”, Air Heart laughed at him.

Black Heart walked towards her and abruptly swung his hoof across her face, leaving only a wide-eyed look of surprise on her face.

Air Heart shook her head after a moment and swung back at her younger brother, hitting him back in his jaw. Afterwards they began to trade blows, Discord feeling his power return once more as the stone around him began to crack.

War Heart was in the main ballroom at the Gala, taking a sip of the punch they were serving. “I really wish I didn’t have to come to these, but I guess if Dash wants to, I’ll just deal with it… At least I don’t feel as awkward this time.”, War Heart’s conversation with himself was interrupted when he suddenly felt something bump into his leg. He quickly snapped towards Arcana, who walked into him while reading her book.

“Oh, My apologies father. I didn’t see you.”, Arcana said as she used her magic to adjust her purple rimmed glasses.

“It’s okay, how is the Gala treating you?”, War Heart replied to his daughter, patting her gently on the head with his hoof.

“I’m not really acquainted with any of these ponies… I just try to ignore them and hope none will try to try approaching me if I look busy.”, Arcana explained in her unusually wordy manner.

“Eh, don’t worry about it, there are things scarier then these ponies.”

“Like spiders?”, Arcana rose an eyebrow, making a remark of the incident with the spider and her father.

War Heart shuddered, “Don’t remind me…”, he said in disgust.

Arcana giggled at the idea that such a large pony could be so terrified of such a small thing. “Mother says that you were here before. Is this true?”, Arcana asked, not knowing much of her father’s past.

“Yep… and I can tell you I didn’t like it any more than I do now.”, War Heart nodded while reminiscing.

“Why were you invited to such an event?”

“Well, I did some things that other ponies saw to be… irregular.”

“What is that supposed to mean.”

“There was a big incident concerning a dragon. I ended up slaying it to protect Ponyville.”

“So they considered you to be a hero?”

“Yes… I found my cutie mark that day. I found that my special… thing was to protect others. That was about seven years ago…”, War Heart’s voice contained a minor hint of despair, a flashback to the past times when he was in Unex City, murdering several people in a blood rage. He shut his eyes and shook his head for a second to clear his mind.

“Interesting. I sense that there is more to this story than you are letting me know.”, Arcana rose an eyebrow to him, expecting him to tell her what happened.

“I don’t feel like talking about that…”, War Heart said as he took a different beverage from the table, this bottle filled with wine instead.

“What are you doing?”, Arcana asked.

“I’m drinking grape juice.”

“That’s wine…”

“It used to be grape juice.”, War Heart said as he crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out in a mocking matter towards his daughter.

Arcana put a hoof to his face, “And they call me a child…”, she said to herself as she shook her head.

“Well, I-”, War Heart stopped in mid sentence as the lights in the Gala all snuffed out at once. Leaving the once brightly lit room in a state of utter darkness.

Slow maniacal laughter began to fill the room, increasing the tempo into a harmony of cackling that sounded as if the source was from nowhere, yet everywhere. The lights flickered to life once more.

In the once empty throne sat a creature with a mischievous expression on his face. “Hello, my good ponies of Canterlot.”, he said in a eerily cheery tone. He floated up out of the throne and glided through the air. “Oh Tia, Oh Tia!”, he called out in a semi-mocking tone.

The Princess galloped into the room with Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash.

“Discord!”, the Princess shouted in an angered tone, which seemed very out of place for those who knew the Princess’ usual vocal habits.

“Well at least SOMEpony remembers me, I was worried that Nopony would remember what fun I started, and what fun that your little band here RUINED!”, a cloud of smoke erupted from Discord’s nostrils and his eyes changed to a deep red on his last word. His voice became unusually deep and sinister and his appearance for that moment changed to something out of a nightmare.

Everypony in the room except for War Heart and Celestia jumped at the sudden outburst from the master of chaos.

“So now you’re free again, I’m sure we can stop you once more!”, Twilight spoke with confidence in the fact that they had defeated him before and that they could do it again.

“Oh, my dear Twilight, I’m afraid that is where you’re wrong. You see, the elements were the only thing sealing me away in that dreadful stone form. Seeing how intelligent you claim to be, I thought you would have figured that out on your own.”, Discord returned to his regular appearance, his tone mocking Twilight.

Twilight’s expression of confidence quickly turned to a troubled one. She had no idea how this could have happened, but something inside her knew he was right.

“But this time, I won’t interfere with anypony beyond tonight. I recently got a little bit of inspiration from somepony who has been beyond this world and seen a different race that is capable of all sorts of chaos just by their own nature.”, Discord explained to the entire room with a grin.

Celestia’s angered look shot to War Heart, who was too busy hiding his daughter behind him.

Discord turned to Celestia before floating a bit higher to the ceiling, his body starting to glow with immense and powerful magic. “Ciao, Tia.”, he said with a wave and a smirk before snapping his fingers. He disappeared in a great blinding blast of white light, everything suddenly went dark for everypony.

War Heart slowly awoke, being flat on his back he sat up to see all who were attending the Gala were out cold. His vision was blurred from the violent blast of magic. He rubbed his eyes to see that he was dreaming again, or he was in that nightmare once more. He panicked as he saw that he had hands once again, abruptly slapping himself across the face to awake himself from this nightmare, “Come on, dammit, wake up!”, he said to himself in a tone of fear. He looked around the room to see everyone was now a human, “No… No, no, no, no… This can’t be happening…”, he said before being lifted from the floor by an invisible force and slammed into the wall.

“War Heart… I trusted you would not reveal what you knew of the world beyond. Now I know that was a mistake. But the fact that you even allowed Discord to be freed and do such a thing to my empire… I should have you executed.”, Celestia spoke as she walked towards War Heart, her veins glowing a pale yellow from inside her flawless alabaster white skin and white feathered wings spread wide.

“I didn’t say anything!”, War Heart shouted, unable to move from the grip of the unseen force pressing him against the wall of the palace.

“Liar! Your treasonous acts leave you deserving no less…”, Celestia said as she held out on one of her hands, a sphere of glowing yellow energy gathering in her palm, “Any last words?”

War Heart struggled against the Princess’s telekinetic hold. Slowly pulling his arm away from the wall with a clenched fist, holding out in front of him and slowly forcing his middle finger up at her.

The orb from Celestia’s hand launched at War Heart, a blast of light flashing on impact. All there was on the wall was a black stain on the yellow paint and a single black feather. She looked to her faithful student and woke her up.

Twilight’s senses were hazy at first but she jumped at the sight of a humanized Celestia waking her up.

“Discord has changed everypony here into… these creatures.”, Celestia explained to Twilight.

“Can we reverse it?”, Twilight asked.

“I’m afraid that unless we find Discord and trap him in stone again, we cannot hope to fight his magic.”, Celestia told her student, no hope in her tone.

Twilight’s friends were starting to awaken now, all having the same shock of changing their appearance to something so unfamiliar.

Dash looked around at the Gala, trying to spot War Heart, but couldn’t, “Where is War Heart?”, she asked aloud with concern, “Where are my kids!?”, she panicked as she looked around trying to find her children. She eventually found herself at the food table and looked under it to find Arcana unconscious underneath. She pulled her daughter out from under the table and hugged her tightly before getting up and trying to find her other kids. She quickly ran over to Twilight, “Twilight, look after Arcana while I try to find Air Heart and Black Heart.”, she said quickly before sprinting outside and looking around the gardens, “Black Heart! Air Heart!”, she called out, worried if they were okay. Soon she found Air Heart, unconscious and bleeding from the lip. She nudged Air Heart to wake up, which she did.

“Air Heart! Are you okay?”, Dash asked quickly, worried that Air Heart could be injured.

“Yeah, Mom… Just took a bit of a fall… No problem.”, Air Heart responded weakly but calmly, also not wanting to admit she was beaten by Black.

“Where is your brother?”, Dash asked Air Heart.

“He’s… I don’t know… I can’t remember…”, Air Heart put her hand on her head for a moment as she tried to collect her thoughts.

Dash picked up Air Heart and flew back into the ball room, running in through the door from the gardens and back to Twilight and the others, “Guys, have you seen Black Heart, and where is War Heart?”

Twilight held out a black feather, the same shade of War Heart’s coat to Dash.

“What… What does this mean? What happened?”, Dash asked, not understanding what was going on.

Celestia put a comforting hand on Dash’s shoulder, “War Heart… Woke up before the rest of us… He didn’t know the extent of Discord’s power… War Heart tried to attack Discord and… He didn’t make it…”, Celestia explained to Dash and pointed to the black stain on the wall.

Dash’s eyes widened as tears began to well up in her eyes. She collapsed to her knees as the weight of sorrow fell heavily on her heart, “Idiot… Just had to be a hero and try to protect everypony…”, Dash said in an angered tone before sobbing and smashing at the ground with her fist. The tears ran down her face and dripped off the tip of her nose, falling to the floor.

Fluttershy and Pinkie walked beside Dash, both putting their hands on her back. Dash quickly grabbing her best friend and wrapping her arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder.

Pinkie gently patted Dash’s back to comfort her, tears welling up in her bright blue eyes at the sight of Dashie, her best friend, in such a sorrowful state.

Twilight held Arcana close to her, not wanting her to see Dash like this. Arcana was asleep now but didn’t want to take the chance of her waking up to see Dash.

Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy all embraced Pinkie and Dash, making a group hug to comfort Dash.

Celestia walked off and ordered her guards to find a Black Earth Pony Colt that should be on the grounds. The guards nodded and flew off. After a half hour of searching, they returned with no results.

Celestia approached Twilight and kneeled beside her, “Twilight, I have been told by my guard that her son is missing.”, Celestia whispered to Twilight before walking away once more.

Twilight sighed in melancholy, scarcely able to believe everything was going so well for Dash, only to have it all taken away so suddenly.

It was only minutes before Celestia had the group escorted to a large room with beds for all of them. The group of friends all guiding Dash to the bed for her to lie down. She continued to sob deeply on the bed, soon crying herself to sleep.

“I can’t believe this could happen to poor Dashie…”, Pinkie commented while looking down to Dash, who was now asleep.

“I don’t think any of us were expecting this to ever happen…”, Twilight said aloud, just finishing putting Arcana and Air Heart to bed.

“What is Rainbow Dash gonna do now? She can’t move to Cloudsdale with Arcana over there.”, AppleJack added.

“She may have to stay in the cabin with her children… As painful as it may be for her, she has little choice at this point…”, Twilight explained, finding the situation to be rather unnerving.

“Perhaps we should deal with this in the morning…”, Rarity suggested as she prepared to get into bed.

“You’re right, it’s been a long day and we should rest for now…”, Twilight agreed and got into bed, as did the others.

Hours passed in silence. The dark was all consuming within the walls of the room. A single light shone from the finger tip of Arcana as she walked over to Twilight’s bed. She nudged Twilight who slowly awoke but snapped to attention as she realized who it was.

“Arcana, What’s wrong?”, Twilight asked in a whisper.

Arcana hopped on the bed and sat on the edge, “I know what happened to my father… I know my mother will not be able to cope with living in that cabin… I wanted to ask… If I could live with you so my sister and mother can live in Cloudsdale with the other Pegasi?”, Arcana looked at Twilight as she asked this, a look of depression on her face which was barely visible in the dim light from Arcana’s hand.

“Ummm… I don’t know about that… I mean, I think your mom would want to be with you and your sister more now than ever.”, Twilight scratched the back of her head.

“She will be better off not being in a place where she is shackled to old memories of my father or brother. I know I am the only one that would really keep her grounded, and I don’t want her to be. She requires time to mourn, alone.”

“I guess I could talk to her tomorrow… We’ll have to see what she wants. Now go to sleep…”, Twilight motioned for Arcana to go back to her bed.

Arcana nodded and walked back to the bed with Air Heart on it, carefully climbing onto the bed and slipping under the covers so she didn’t wake her sister. She drifted off into her slumber after her head hit the pillow, sinking into the black silence of sleep.

The next morning, everyone was awake. Dash sat on the bed, hugging her knees, wishing that it didn’t happen. She wasn’t crying anymore, but she wouldn’t speak a word. Not that she had to. The sorrow could be felt just by gazing into her rose eyes. A pain of loss like no other would strike at the very soul and tear at one’s heartstrings. Pinkie never left her side all night, being her best friend, she felt it was her obligation to be there and hopefully make Dash happy, or at least comfortable. However, even Pinkie was feeling that a party couldn’t fix what happened. The best she could hope for was to be there for Dashie and hope she feels better soon.

Arcana walked over to Dash. She hopped up on the bed and sat in front of her, “Mother, I know how you are feeling… and I want to ask you… If you would prefer to live in Cloudsdale.”, Arcana asked, not looking at Dash.

“What are you talking about?”, Dash asked weakly.

“I want you and Air Heart to live in Cloudsdale… I can live in Ponyville with Twilight, or Aunt Sweet Heart, maybe… I don’t want you to be grounded because of me…”, Arcana explained then looked to her mother with sincerity in her eyes.

Dash began to tear up and pulled her daughter to her and hugged her tightly, “You’ve always been so mature for your age… I’m so proud that you’re willing to do this for me and your sister… But I want to be with you both…”, Dash was struggling to hold back sobs as she spoke.

Arcana gently pulled away from her mother, “Mother… You have to do this, we cannot live in that house anymore… We have to pull away from our past, lest it keep us from our future…”, Arcana held her mother’s hand as she spoke.

Dash looked down, realizing that her daughter was right, that she had to get away from that place. She looked to Arcana and nodded, “You’re right…”

Twilight left with Arcana to Ponyville, Arcana immediately began looking through the sections of books in Twilight’s library.

Twilight watched as the young girl looked through the books, thinking that she just wanted to escape. “Are you okay, Arcana?”, Twilight asked her.

“I’m am fine, Miss Sparkle. However, I feel I should get back to my studies…”, Arcana replied.

“Okay… Well if you ever want to talk, I’m here for you.”, Twilight told her before walking outside.

Arcana stood there in front of the shelves of books, scanning them over for anything that could be of interest.

“Hey! Who are you!? What are you?”, a male voice that emanated from a baby dragon came from behind Arcana.

“Oh, Greetings, Spike, I have returned from the Gala.”, Arcana turned to Spike, who was still in his regular dragon form.

“Wha-… Arcana?”, the dragon’s jaw dropped to see that the filly from before in a completely different body.

“Indeed, Now, If you don’t mind, I have to return to my studies.”

“You mean, you aren’t going to explain what happened?”

“In short… No.”

Spike sighed, knowing that Arcana was serious about not giving him any information. He walked outside and saw that everyone was like Arcana, walking on two legs and looked totally different. “What’s going on?”, Spike asked himself as he walked off to look for Twilight.

Arcana stood in the library, now sure that everyone was gone. “I need to figure out how I’m going to do this…”