Stepping Stones
by GrimoireFantasia
Chapters
Chapter 1: The Return of Chaos
"Hm? What's this?"
An expression of shock became plastered across the face of the draconequus. He saw, standing before his throne, the six mares he had turned against one another, now fully restored in color and preparing to finish him off.
“No.”
With a flash of light, the Elements of Harmony activated, and a beam of prismatic energy arced upward and pierced downward toward the spirit of chaos. This was it. This was the end of it all.
“NO!”
The blast of rainbow light crashed into the ground, surrounding Discord in its magical power and starting to wrap around him, shifting his normal body to solid rock. He struggled to resist, but it did not do much to stop the harmonious magics from continuing the transformation.
Slowly but surely, from the soles of his feet to the tip of his snout, his entire body had morphed to stone. With a crack, the petrified chimera hit the ground, remaining intact but still completely motionless. It was over. Discord lost.
The blaring sound of a trumpet’s fanfare signaled the six mares, now heroes once more, to begin their march down the red carpet toward the throne, where the sun princess Celestia awaited them.
“Citizens of Equestria!” the solar princess announced. “We are gathered here today to once again honor the heroism of these six friends who stood up to the villain Discord and saved Equestria from eternal chaos!”
Applause and cheers overlapped throughout the entirety of the room as the alicorn princess revealed a stained glass window depicting Discord’s defeat, with the six young mares standing on the ground below, returning him to his stone prison. All was as it should have been. Discord was sealed away, and peace had been restored...or had it?
An interesting and disturbing place, the void of chaos. An ordinary realm to its regular residents, yet to an outsider, it is an extraordinary enigma. The first thing to be noticed is that absolute nothing in this strange world is consistent. It is ever-changing in at least one aspect of its existence. If nothing else, the one constant change is the instant transition from night into day that occurs almost hourly.
A long stretch of road made up of stone with a checkerboard pattern bore several small town-like communities along its path, each taken residence by families of impling creatures. They were rather small beings, only two and a half feet tall, with horns of various shapes, sizes and colors, and their bodies were partially draconic like their great ruler. They shared the land with gargantuan titans called ‘Ogres’ by the chaos lord himself. They were over ten feet tall, muscle-bound beasts with fangs and claws, and they acted as nothing more than guardians of the imps.
One of the implings came barrelling down the road, past the logs of obsidian, through the forest of bubbles and soap and across a rickety bridge built over a roaring rapid of chocolate milk. His destination was clear as day, or in this case, night: a large, ominous castle towering so high over a dozen towns down the road, yet all the while, it gave off no shadow in any direction, as if its owner denied the sun and moon themselves, or as if the celestial bodies denied themselves to him.
The impling came barging through the door, tripping over his own feet and tumbling down a red carpet past several dozen doorways to the left and right, each marked with its own categorical code. He rolled down into a large stone room, where at the end, the draconic figure of the castle’s master swung a brush across the back wall, finishing his mural: a depiction of Ponyville, totally decimated by an endlessly-flowing void of chaos from the sky.
The impling’s roll stopped just before he touched the draconequus’ heels. His labored breaths alerted his master to his arrival, causing him to turn around and look down at the small creature.
“You’ve arrived just in time,” spoke the draconic lord. “I take it you have what I’ve been waiting for?”
“Of course, Lord Discord,” sniveled the impling, pulling a leather-bound note from within his cloak. “It arrived just moments ago. The letter to the princess from her protege.”
Discord swiped it from the impling and dismissed him. The room was empty of all but the draconequus himself in all of five seconds. He opened it and read the note’s contents aloud, albeit abridged slightly.
“Dear Princess, blah blah blah, small problem, blah blah blah, entire town in total chaos...ah, so my little ponies do miss me...”
Discord crumples up the note and tosses it to the floor, creating a white gateway before him. With a snap of his fingers, he dismisses his brush and palate and looks into the rift, face lit up with a twisted grin.
“I suppose now is as good a time as any to try again...but this time I’ll do it right. I’ll go for my dear Celestia and Luna first, and then turn Equestria into my personal canvas of disharmony! A terrible catastrophe, played by a symphony! What a terrifying work of art it will be!”
The ivory rift now showed an image, and the draconic demon grinned even greater. He could see into Celestia’s own throne room, and she had just finished reading the friendship report from her student and her friends.
“Ah, dear Celestia...so long have you tormented me...so long have you despised me...so long have you believed I was your prisoner...when all this time, you were just setting yourself up to become mine.”
The sun princess Celestia dismissed the letter, sending it to the room she stored all of Twilight’s friendship reports. She glanced around the empty room, void of even her royal guards, and sighed. It was far too quiet for her tastes. She almost enjoyed chaos.
“Bored without my magic, are we, Celestia?”
Celestia looked around rapidly for the source of the voice. In her panic, she failed to realize that it stood, or rather, floated, right in front of her.
“...How?”
“What, no hello? How are you, Discord? How have you been since my tools turned you back to stone? How disappointing.”
“Stop beating around the bush, Discord,” Celestia said, glaring at the chaos spirit. “How did you escape?”
The draconequus chuckled. “Oh, my dear princess...how can one escape from a prison that does not exist to him?”
Celestia’s glare did not falter. “What are you talking about?”
“I was never sealed away, Celestia...I only had you believe that I was, so that when you were in a position like this, isolated by your self in your chambers, I could come and talk with you.”
“I’m done talking, Discord. I trusted Twilight Sparkle and her friends to put you back where you belong, but apparently it is not enough to keep you there...so instead, I’ll seal you in stone personally!”
A powerful magic aura surged from Celestia’s horn, and a mighty blast of energy shot forth toward the draconic spirit. Discord merely twisted his body slightly to evade the blast, giving the alicorn an unamused look.
“Really, Celestia, all I want to do is have a little chat, and you’re making such a big deal out of this.”
“Why should I even listen to you?” inquired Celestia. “You ruled the land in total disharmony, broke free and stole the elements, and now you return, claiming that you somehow were never really a prisoner? Give me one good reason I should hear out anything you say.”
“Well, you’ve got me there, Celestia. I really have no good reason to talk...but perhaps your sister would like to step forth and speak her mind.”
Celestia’s eyes turned to the shifting of one of the window curtains closest to the door, where the figure of a midnight blue alicorn stepped forth out of hiding.
“Luna? Why art thou in hiding among the curtains?” Celestia asked, taking on the royal Canterlot dialect as she naturally would with her sister.
“I had been listening in on thine letter from Twilight Sparkle and her companions. I do so apologize for sneaking about, sister.”
Luna glared at Discord, her horn flaring up with powerful magic. “But now we must work in unison to banish this demon once and for all!”
“I could not agree more, my sister,” Celestia said, aiming her horn at the chaos spirit.
“Oh...so that’s how it’s going to be, is it, Luna?” Discord pouted.
“Thy trickery dost not work on me anymore, Discord!” Luna declared, taking on her booming Canterlot voice. “Thou shall be sealed away once more, no matter what thou may say against it!”
“We, the princesses Celestia and Luna,” added Celestia, taking the mighty tone as well, “deem thou far too dangerous to be imprisoned in any known part of Equestria!”
“We seal thee in stone once more,” spoke Luna.
“And send thee deep into the planet’s core!” yelled Celestia.
The alicorn sisters each let off a powerful flare of magic energy from their horns. Discord knew this was it. This was the spell he was waiting for them to cast. He held his arms up and smirked.
“I won’t be losing this time, Celestia...It’s time I turned the tables on you and your sister...”
With the swipe of his paw and claw, he created two twisting vortexes, one in each direction he was being attacked.
“What?” yelled the princesses in unison, but their cries meant nothing as their spells passed through the rifts and shot right out at one another. The two could not dodge in time, and the magic had begun to take effect. Slowly, from their hooves up, they began morphing into statues.
“How does it feel, Celestia? Tell me what being petrified feels like to you!”
“I thought you said you don’t turn ponies to stone, Discord!” Celestia exclaimed, panicking as she attempted to cancel out her sister’s spell, while Luna did the same, both failing completely.
“Well, there are two things wrong with that statement, my dear Celestia,” Discord noted, forming a glass of chocolate milk in his hand. “The first is that you are far beyond that mortal coil, and the second is that I’ve done nothing but redirect your spells. You brought this upon yourself, and you will have to live with it.”
The stone transformation was up to their necks. The sisters struggled to counter the spell, but to no avail. After attempting such a powerful spell, the most either of them would be able to do would be mere teleportation, and they would be petrified regardless.
“One thing still perplexes me, Discord,” Celestia growled, still straining to break free.
“Oh? And what is that, Celestia?”
“What is your real goal?”
“Well,” Discord said with a grin. “I suppose you could say that you were merely my...”
The stone had nearly wrapped around their bodies completely. Discord floated up to Celestia’s ear and whispered the answer.
“Stepping stones to taking back the throne.”
Celestia managed a gasp, followed by a transition of expression from anger to shock as the petrification spell finished the job. Celestia and Luna stood at opposite positions in the palace throne room, and they had been completely turned to stone. Discord tapped the side of Celestia’s head, as if there was reason to double check, which he knew there wasn’t.
“And now,” the draconequus chuckled, “time for the finishing touches before I plunge Ponyville into a void of chaos...”
Discord snapped his fingers, and in an instant, he vanished along with the petrified princesses.
It was a brisk night throughout Ponyville, and the library in the small town was not as quiet as it usually was. On this particular night, after the events of Twilight Sparkle’s backfiring ‘Want It, Need It’ spell and the friendship report written by her and her six friends, the librarian unicorn had invited the group to stay for a sleepover.
“And then,” spoke Rainbow Dash, holding a flashlight beneath her chin for dramatic effect, “the filly stared off into the forest, only to see the twisted image of a pony before her...”
She flicked the device off and suddenly bolted up into the air, turning it back on again, but this time, holding it above her. “A skeletal pony!”
The five girls, and the baby dragon Spike, screamed and jumped back in fear as Rainbow Dash slowly descended to the floor of the library, roaring with laughter.
“Oh, man,” she laughed, wiping a tear from her eye, “you guys are way too easy!”
“That was not funny, Rainbow Dash!” announced Rarity, pulling herself out from beneath a stack of pillows. “That was the most sick and twisted thing I’ve ever heard anypony come up with!”
“I have to agree with Rarity, Rainbow,” Twilight added. “That was a pretty messed up story.”
“Well, don’t blame me!” Rainbow proclaimed. “It’s not my story! Zecora told me that one! She said it was an old story from her homeland.”
“Sounds believable,” Applejack said, glancing around the room out of instinctual fear. “Zecora’s probably got a whole bunch’a creepy tales ta spin.”
“I-if it would be all right,” stuttered Fluttershy, hiding beneath several layers of blankets, pillows and a table, “could we p-please...stop the scary stories now?”
“All right, all right,” Dash said, waving her hoof dismissively. “I’ll give it a rest. Besides, isn’t there one part of this sleepover we almost forgot about?”
“Aw, yeah! I know what yer talkin’ bout, Rainbow! Pillow fig-” Applejack began, interrupted by a pillow to the face, courtesy of Rarity.
“Too slow,” Rarity giggled before she was pelted by Pinkie Pie from behind.
“Pillow fight! Pillow fight!”
The girls began flinging pillows around the room, while Fluttershy cowered beneath her fortress of blankets, avoiding the feathery war zone entirely. Spike failed to escape the conflict in time and became fully buried under a barrage of pillows. The girls’ laughter filled the room, and for a moment, everything was as it should have been: normal.
The ordinary night did not linger, as a pair of mighty crashes sounded out from outside the library, and the pillows hit the floor with a soft thud. Silence reigned for several seconds before Twilight began a slow trek towards the door. With a slow creak, she opened the door and peered outside, only to jump back and shriek in terror at what she had seen. She rubbed her eyes, hoping what she’d just witnessed was only an illusion conjured by her exhausted mind, but it was not true. She made her way outside, and her friends slowly followed.
Now standing before the library, parallel to one another on each side of the door, were the petrified forms of Celestia and Luna. Twilight thought at first that they could just be mere works of art, but their expressions too greatly resembled the princesses. She also took notice to how terrified they are...similar to a certain draconequus when he was being sealed in stone.
Twilight couldn’t bear it any longer. With the sudden stress of the situation crashing upon her, she collapsed to the ground, burying her face into the dirt and breaking down into tears. She tried to stop herself. What would the princesses think of how she was acting? Surely they’d want her to buck up and handle this with tenacity...but she couldn’t. Any single thought of her mentor brought even more tears to her eyes. Even the consoling calls of her friends failed to penetrate the mental barrier she’d put up on her mind.
“Twi!” exclaimed Applejack. “C’mon, girl, ya gotta snap outta this! It ain’t that bad! We can fix it! We’ve done the impossible before, remember?”
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie added, hopping around the moping unicorn. “We’ll make all the bad stuff go away just like before!”
“I don’t think it will be that simple this time, Pinkie Pie,” spoke a familiar disembodied voice.
A blinding flash of light exploded before the six mares, and the twisted draconequus Discord now floated before them with a huge grin on his face.
“Discord!” exclaimed a furious Rainbow Dash, who upon getting him in her sights, charged at him with blinding speed, only to be stopped by a brick wall materializing out of thin air. The cyan pegasus slid down the wall, curling up into a ball, crying softly in pain.
“There will be none of that this time, my little ponies. For you see, I did not just turn your glorious princesses’ petrification spells on one another, but in redirecting the spells, I absorbed a portion of their magic. Now I am in full control of Equestria and beyond!”
Discord hovered in toward Twilight and tapped her horn thrice with a claw on his talon hand. “Ah, Twilight Sparkle...it seems you won’t be much of a threat this time around. Excellent. With just one of you confirmed out of the way, I’ve nothing to fear...”
Discord soared up high into the sky, but close enough to the ground so he could properly rant. “And now,” he proclaimed, raising his claw to the sky and generating a black void of sorts in it, “Pure, untamed and glorious chaos!”
The void in his clawed palm shot up into the clouds, seeming to absorb them completely as it began to generate a large, twisting warp of black and white. It seemed to do nothing at first, but as the seconds ticked on, the rift began to release a flurry of implings wielding sharpened candy cane swords and checkerboard shields.
“What in tarnation?” was all Applejack could manage before Pinkie, Rarity and Fluttershy were dragging her, Rainbow Dash and the still-sulking Twilight back inside the library, safely away from the rain of chaos that had just been unleashed onto Ponyville.
“Ah, I think this is a good first day,” Discord said with a chuckle. “Well, back to the palace to begin transforming it. I won’t have this kingdom until I have turned Celestia’s old decrepit hovel into the perfect castle for the perfect realm of chaos!”
Discord glanced around, spotting about a dozen nearby implings and heading over to them. “You!” he demanded. “You are now my palace guards. Come with me. We’ve much redecorating to do.”
The implings were quick to obey, as they always were. They followed their master on foot as he floated above them, back toward Canterlot, which was already overflowing with heavily-armed implings. The pony guards attempted to fight back, but the mass number of Discord’s imp minions was far too great for them, and they were immediately overpowered and tossed into the palace prison cells.
“Hmm...” Discord made a mental note. If, by some chance, the Elements of Harmony could bring Twilight Sparkle around, he may want to keep at least one of them far away from her friends. Not Applejack, he thought. Being the strongest of the six, she could break free with little to no effort. Not Rainbow Dash, he mused. She would escape just as easily, utilizing speed rather than brawn.
Just then, it hit him. The one pony who was just as chaotic as he was. “Pinkie Pie,” he thought aloud sinisterly. “She enjoyed my chaos the last time, to an extend...perhaps I can...tempt her to my side.”
Back in the library, Spike, just pushing his way out of a pillow mountain, looked at the six in total confusion. “Did something just happen?” he inquired, quickly glancing over at his sobbing friend. “Twilight!”
Spike made a mad dash to Twilight, evading any and all obstacles in his path as he jumped at her, wrapping his arms around her neck in a hug. This finally got the lavender unicorn to glance up and see the baby dragon staying as close to her as possible, his face plastered with worry.
“Spike?” she muttered tearfully, wiping her eyes so she could see more clearly. She didn’t speak another word. The only thing she did next was return the young dragon’s embrace, wondering what just happened, how Discord broke free, and how she was going to put him back in stone. For the remainder of the night, the library was depressingly silent.
Chapter 2: A Whirlwind of Chaos
The morning after Discord’s appearance before Twilight and her friends, despite the return of pure chaos into Equestria, the library was still as quiet as usual. There was no discussion of the current situation, nor were there inquiries regarding the status of the two princesses. The six mares just looked at each other awkwardly, not even sure of what to say. Twilight was still impossible to communicate with. The sight of her mentor in stone had broken her.
“So,” Rainbow Dash finally spoke. “What are we gonna do now?”
“Ain’t much we can do without Twi,” Applejack retorted.
“She’s been completely silent since last night,” Rarity added. “I’ve put nearly a dozen of those stuffy magic books in front of her, and she still won’t budge an inch.”
Silence reigned in the library once more as Spike made a slow crawl from the second floor and walked straight over to Twilight and clinging to her leg without saying a word. It pained him to see the pony who was practically his mother in such a state as this. Because Twilight was suffering, so was Spike. For nearly ten minutes, the room remained silent. Another inquiry broke the awkward silence.
“Are we really just gonna stand around and do nothing?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I mean, we’ve got pure chaos raining down on us! There has to be something we can do to fight back!”
“An’ what do ya propose we do?” Applejack asked in reply. “What can we do? Discord ain’t holdin’ back none this time ‘round, an’ there ain’t no Elements of Harmony without Twi.”
“But he’s got those little things with him this time! You saw them, right? Those...I don’t even know what they’re called! Twilight would know what they’re-” Dash stopped, catching herself before she continued her sentence. Now wasn’t the time to start yelling, placing blame or demanding answers. “We have to try doing something. Anything!”
“We could, um...” Fluttershy spoke meekly, trying her best as always not to be too loud. “Try to...ask him nicely to leave?”
All eyes but Twilight’s and Spike’s were on Fluttershy, and though they were not negative stares in any way, the shy pegasus curled up and simply said, “Sorry.”
“That would have to be an absolute last resort, Fluttershy, dear,” Rarity said, replying to Fluttershy’s awkward suggestion in an attempt to save her feelings. “I wouldn’t think he’d simply surrender just like that after going to all this trouble.”
“O-oh. Right. I understand.”
“But we have to do something!” Pinkie Pie suddenly exclaimed, jumping forward and nearly tripping over her own hooves. “Ponyville just got done with two chaos-related doozies! I don’t think even Equestria can handle what Discord is doing this time!”
“We ain’t gonna be able ta lock him away again just yet,” said Applejack, looking out the library’s window into the chaos-filled village. “But we can’t just let those little buggers’a his run free causin’ trouble fer other ponies. Ah say we round ‘em up as best we can and put ‘em someplace they ain’t gonna be able to hurt nopony.”
“What about your apple cellar?” Pinkie inquired excitedly. “You know, the one Twilight fell down into when she was trying to figure out how my Pinkie Sense worked!”
“Ah dunno,” Applejack said in thought. “Only thing keepin’ it shut is a wooden plank, really. It wouldn’t hold ‘em fer long.”
“Then I’ll stand guard and keep them in there,” Rainbow proclaimed, forcefully stomping a hoof to the ground. “They won’t be escaping on my watch.”
“Then that’s what we’re doing?” asked Rarity. “We’re going after Discord’s unruly henchmen?”
“Sounds like it,” Applejack answered, giving a nod. “It’s all we can do while we wait fer Twi to recover.”
The other four nodded in agreement as the girls made their way out of the library. Fluttershy was the last to leave, bidding a final meek farewell to Twilight and Spike. Being the Element of Kindness, she didn’t like leaving the two alone like this, but what more could she do? She couldn’t turn the princesses back, and she couldn’t deny that gathering up Discord’s minions would put the chaotic spirit at a disadvantage. She silently shut the library door and met up with the rest of her friends. Outside the library, things were rather quiet. The implings weren’t bothering with anything near it, as they were far too busy harassing the townsponies with their vile pranks and sinister tricks. Discord may have had a greater plan than this in the long run, but his minions were simply harlequins and jesters whose only goal in life was achieving cheap laughs from the suffering of others. This was something they could handle, but the girls had a feeling that Discord knew that too.
“All right, girls, spread out and gather up as many o’ them lil’ varmints as ya can! Bring ‘em down to Sweet Apple Acres and toss ‘em down the cellar!”
“Right!” the other four mares shouted in unison as they broke off in different directions.
Rainbow Dash’s initial idea was to hit Sweet Apple Acres first, considering she’d be standing guard over the imp prison once they were all rounded up. Moving as fast as she could, being Rainbow Dash and all, she was the first of her friends to arrive at her chosen destination. She could see that the farm had already been under attack by a small group of imps. Unfortunately for the minuscule peons, Apple Bloom’s half-knowledge of martial arts had actually come in handy for once, as she was visibly seen standing atop an overturned apple basket, delivering kick after kick to the faces of any imps that dared approach. Sure enough, Apple Bloom wasn’t the only one protecting the farm. If the imps weren’t suffering at the hands of the kicking Crusader, they were being sent flying like rockets out of the atmosphere by a mighty buck from Big Macintosh.
“Well, it looks like I can just hang back and wait for this to blow over!”
Rainbow Dash pulled a cloud down from above her and laid back on it for all of five seconds before a sudden figure soared right through the cloud beneath her, breaking it up into nothing and sending her plummeting down. In her sudden panic, Rainbow could do nothing but flail about for several seconds before finally spreading her wings open and taking to the skies, turning her gaze rapidly across the skies to locate her foe.
“All right, what’s the big idea?!”
Her assailants came into view: bat-winged imps wielding jagged spears hovered before her, jeering the rainbow-maned pegasus. These were obviously soldiers over pranksters, which meant Discord finally started taking things seriously.
“Oh, you wanna go?” Rainbow punched her hooves together, glaring at the group of winged minions. “Then let’s go!”
The imps took off toward Discord’s rift in the sky, and Rainbow immediately followed, moving more than twice as fast as the winged demons. One by one, she knocked the bat-winged creatures out of the sky, sending them crashing to the ground below.
“Yo, Big Mac!” Rainbow yelled down from above, gaining the attention of the burly crimson stallion. “I need you to get these imps into the apple cellar as I knock ‘em down!”
Macintosh nodded, and one by one, as Rainbow sent the imps spiraling to the dirt, the mighty stallion began bucking them rather accurately over to the cellar entrance, where Apple Bloom did her part, opening the door and pushing the unconscious minions down the stairs. The winged imps stood no chance against the prismatic blur that was Rainbow Dash. Their speed was nothing compared to hers, and they knew that Discord had purposely sent them to their doom, or at least their imprisonment. In several minutes, the well-oiled imp-catching machine finished the job with Rainbow sending the last minion crashing down right into the cellar, landing behind the door, giving it a quick buck shut and standing atop it proudly, with Apple Bloom and Big Mac standing guard along with her.
“Oh, yeah. We’re awesome.”
In her moment of glory, Rainbow almost missed the sounds and feelings of something stomping across the ground in her direction. She cast her gaze toward the sounds to see a rather large, indistinguishable figure heading towards the farm through the forest, breaking down every tree in its path.
“That’s...not a good sign...”
Rainbow and the two Apples stood at the ready, but none of them were prepared for what came next. As the last trees were pushed apart by a pair of large demon-like talons, the face of an exceptionally large ogreish creature shot forth and emitted a vicious, angry roar before setting its sights on Rainbow Dash and the two farm ponies standing guard before the cellar imprisoning its brothers and sisters.
“Uh...you two have a plan?” Rainbow asked, being in far too much of a panic to even consider logical thinking.
“Nope,” Big Mac stated plainly with audible fear, receding from the beast’s reach with as silent a walk as he could make with his heavy hooves.
“Ah got one,” Apple Bloom replied, backing away slowly as well. “Run!”
Bloom and Mac took off toward the barn as the titan ogre lifted the trees from beside it and flung began swinging them at Rainbow Dash, knowing only retribution for its brethren in its mind. The cyan pegasus barely dodged the apple trees, the branches pulling a chunk of her prismatic mane out, leaving the remainder of it matted and unsightly. Rainbow Dash glared at the ogre, her wings flapping angrily.
“Oh, you wanna rumble with the Rainbow, big guy? Let’s see what you’ve got!”
Rainbow took off and began circling the behemoth, evading every swing he made at her. Not only was she wearing the ogre out, but she was confusing him too and she was getting faster. She knew a Rainboom wouldn’t be necessary for this, but she needed just enough speed for what she did have in mind.
“C’mon...just need to keep going...!”
The beast continued to attempt a strike on the supersonic pegasus, but failed to make contact due to the speed at which she flew. She continued picking up speed until she was but a blur, and a cyclone of colors formed around the giant, plucking him off his feet and up into the air. The giant roared angrily, still trying to swing at the cyan blur to no avail, earning a cocky chuckle from her.
“Can’t touch me now, can ya? Didn’t think so, punk!”
Rainbow bolted out of her colorful whirlwind, ceasing its spin and sending the ogre falling to the ground. The beast could do naught to save itself and crash-landed onto its back, slipping into a state of unconsciousness in the crater it formed on contact. Rainbow landed on the beast’s stomach, standing proudly once again as Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh peered out of a crack in the barn door. At this point, as she caressed her damaged mane, Rainbow only had one thing to say.
“Anypony got any rope? I don’t think this big lummox is gonna be out cold forever!”
Meanwhile, back in the library, Spike continued to try and snap Twilight out of her paralyzed daze. Nothing he tried would work, but he wouldn’t give up. He’d keep trying for her sake. He paced back and forth, muttering his failed attempts aloud to himself.
“C’mon, c’mon, think! What else can I do to get Twi back to normal? I’ve tried Miss Smarty Pants, I’ve tried her letters from Celestia...heck, I’ve even read her paragraph after paragraph from those spell books she reads before bed! There isn’t anything else I can do...”
“You could give up,” echoed a familiar chaotic voice that sent a chill down Spike’s spine. “Surrender would be your best option right now, if you think about it.”
With a bright white flash, Discord appeared within the library, sporting a top hat and cane. “Well, isn’t this unexpected?” he sarcastically inquired with a light chuckle. “Half a day has gone by, and Twilight Sparkle is still as petrified as her precious teacher!”
Spike simply glared at the draconequus, not saying a word. Discord, of course, floated around the young dragon, tapping the cane around his feet.
“Now, now, little dragon. Leave the staring to Fluttershy. You’re not very good at it.”
“Why are you here?” Spike hissed, baring his tiny claws.
“Oh, I just came to check up on my little ponies...but as it would appear, they’ve already gone out to play with my imps, ogres and various other entities of disharmony, so I figured I’d stop by and see if the Element of Magic had broken free of her silly little trance. Unfortunately, she’s just as boring as Celestia always was.”
“Why are you even doing this?” Spike yelled in question. “I thought you were just a spirit of chaos. What’s the point of taking the throne?”
“Just a spirit of chaos?” Discord faked a pout. “I’m hurt, little dragon. You clearly don’t know my back-story. I suppose I’ll just have to tell it.”
Discord whipped his gryphon claw-hand through the air, summoning forth a glass of chocolate milk. He drank the glass itself and crushed the solidified chocolate drink into a cloud of dust, which began to generate an image. Spike stared into the cloud seeming to be only semi-impressed. He wouldn’t want to give Discord more credit than he deserved.
“As you may notice, I call Celestia boring quite often...there is a reason behind it, but I doubt any of you little ponies, or dragon, would have ever cared to listen. But since you’re not going anywhere, I’ll take this opportunity to weave my tale for you.”
The clouds swirled into formation, presenting Spike with a depiction of a younger Celestia. Her mane had not yet gained its magical flow or its majestic colors, and she was no bigger than any young filly.
“You see, Celestia was quite bored herself in her youth. Nothing to do, nopony to play with and a younger sister that couldn’t even speak and required the utmost attention from her parents. She was all alone...and that’s when I came along.”
The image shifted to show a smaller Discord crash-landing in the royal garden like that of a meteor and Celestia heading out to investigate. She brought the young draconequus into the palace library and fell asleep herself.
“After my recovery, Celestia and I became...friends...rather quickly. I began introducing her to my special brand of magic...my chaos. At first, she loved it. She loved me. Or so I thought.”
The chocolate cloud moved to the next image, which showed a young Discord and Celestia pulling pranks on various guardsponies and Canterlot citizens.
“We so enjoyed toying with the guards and townsponies, and it felt like it would never end! Countless hours of cotton candy clouds, dancing flower beds, animated armor and chocolate beverage raining from the sky! It was glorious!”
The image that formed next showed Discord setting off away from Canterlot castle, leaving a saddened Celestia behind.
“Alas...the one thing that continued to bother me was my origin...so I set out to discover where I’d come from. I searched for years and years and found nothing...not even a sign of my birth. So I chose to return to my beloved Celestia. But little did I know...”
The next image displayed was that of Celestia tending to her duties as the princess, and shrugging off Discord’s pranks and tricks as he danced around the room, seeming only to amuse himself.
“In the years I’d been gone, she’d become so obsessed with work, and left herself no time to enjoy the simpler things in life! She pushed me away and told me she was too busy for ‘silly games’! She said she was bored of pointless pranks’! She turned into exactly what those stuffy ponies wanted her to, so I gave up trying to get her back. If I couldn’t have my Celestia, nopony could!”
The next image showed Discord raining fiery boulders down upon Canterlot as he laughed madly.
“I began showing all of Canterlot my ultimate chaos, and they all fled in terror! It was the most amazing thing I’d ever done! I’d become a glorious emperor of entropy! I ruled with no question, but something was still missing. Then, as if reality was answering my question, Celestia finally returned to me! But it was not as I’d hoped...”
The final image revealed Discord being sealed in stone by Celestia and the six stones bearing the Elements of Harmony levitating above her. His expression was that of pure unexpected fear.
“She’d remained the same as they’d all wanted her to...she was still a stuffy little princess, and she came to the beck and call of her people to put me in stone and end my ‘reign of terror’. As I sat in stone in the garden, I plotted and I waited...I waited for over one thousand years.”
“Sounds like this all started because you were bored,” Spike seethed, still poised to attack.
“Perhaps,” replied Discord, waving away the cloud images. “But I was only bored because Celestia was so boring. Besides, she’s much more interesting as a doorstop than a princess, don’t you think so, my little dragon?”
Spike growled angrily as Discord stifled a giggle, then began chuckling, then broke out into a full-fledged laugh that echoed throughout the library. After a moment of thoroughly enjoying his own sick sense of humor, the chaotic spirit calmed himself down, wiping a nonexistent tear from his eye as his laugh dimmed to a chuckle.
“Well, I must be off once again. The palace’s redecoration is nearly complete, and I don’t want to miss the unveiling!”
With his usual burst of light, the draconequus disappeared. Spike disregarded the disharmonious spirit’s ramblings and continued, with little to no success, attempting to stir Twilight from her trance.