"Bring them back, Discord!!!" Rainbow howled, teeth barred.
Wildcard jolted, looking all around.
"Wait, what?!" Ariel glanced left and right. "Discord? He's responsible for—?"
"Now!" Rainbow stomped a hoof. "I mean it!"
"Well, okay then!" Discord wriggled with suddenly existing sleeves. "Let me just pull out my magic chaos wand and bibbity bobbity boo until I understand exactly what in the blue fudge you are talking about!" He planted his ghostly knuckles on his hips, frowning at her. "Honestly! After all Mommy and Daddy did to raise a prim and proper east horse, this is the attitude you have to give me?!"
"Discord, I'm not joking around!"
"And, for once—which makes me perfectly nauseated to confess—neither am I, Sparky." Discord stifled a yawn. He examined his talon's claws as he muttered on: "Not that I wish to understand any better, mind you. It would eliminate the suspense, and eliminating the suspense would eliminate the thrill and eliminating the thrill would—"
"Rrrrrrrrgh!" Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and hovered directly in front of him. "You wanted me to talk to you?! Well, here I am! But if we're gonna chat, then you're going to have to level with me!" Her eyes flickered red-on-yellow. "Where. Are. They?!"
He blinked at her. "Huh..." His matching eyes squinted back at the mare. "Almost like looking in a mirror." He pinched two paw pads together. "You might wanna dial back the edge. Just a tad bit. All I ever did in my 'angry' phase was listen to yaks banging their heads against stones. Such a talented group... that is until they sold out with 'Woolywall.'"
"Rainbow..." Ariel nervously hovered up towards the mare, reaching a hoof out. "Please. Calm down and just talk to us—"
Rainbow batted her fetlock away without looking. "Where did you send them, Discord?" Her eyes flickered again, and a monsterous hiss filled her words. "Are they gone forever?"
"Okay." He folded his forelimbs. "I'll tell you what I know. But only because you look sooooooooo adorable right now." He plucked his tooth out, turned it into a pipe, and proceeded to blow bubbles. "It was a dark and stormy twilight..."
"DISCORD!!!"
He shrugged. "They just... fallopian tube'd to wherever it is they like to go when it's beddy-bye time."
"The Vanilla Zone?" Rainbow blinked. "Is that where they are?"
"Pfffft! Hah!" Discord grinned maniacally. "Is that what you prancing ponies call it? What's next? 'Blue Sphere?!?'"
"The Vanilla Zone?" Ariel remarked.
Wildcard gestured something.
Ariel responded, "If that's the case... then th-they should be perfectly fine!"
"I can't believe that," Rainbow stammered, shaking her head. "Not for one second." She scowled at Discord again. "After all, he's obliterated them before. What's stopping him from doing it again?"
"What's stopping your friends from turning me to stone again?" Discord belched. "Ghost stone, that is? Harmony or Chaos—the deus ex mallot swings both ways, Sparky. Or at least, it once did. Alas..." He yanked a chunk of his chest meat away, dissolving it into ectoplasmic strands. "We're both mutually busted, methinks. Gone are the days of rainbow zaparooni. No offense to your bloodline, of course."
"Then..." Rainbow panted, her ears drooping. She looked helplessly up at the floating rocks and levitating debris. "...you h-had..." A gulp. "...nothing to do with this...?"
Discord spread his arms wide. "Do I wear a pink diaper?!" A beat. "Hmmm... sounds rather nice, actually..."
"Rainbow..." Ariel shrugged. "Maybe it wasn't Discord. Whatever happened to your friends—maybe it has something to do with what's happening around us."
"Wowwwwwwwww..." Discord split into four copies of himself for group applause. "How very astute!" He pointed at the Heraldite. "You should listen to side-waifu here. She speaks truth. Also, she's fuzzy."
"But... what?" Rainbow panted, sweating visibly. She pivoted about, and her eyes flickered again and again. "If not you... then what could have caused them to vanish?" A beat. She squinted at the dragonequus. "And for you to appear so vividly...?"
"I know, right?" Discord gestured at his brightly-lit self, as if he was standing on an invisible stage. "Front and center! I belong on the cover of a magazine that middle-aged mares everywhere would read!" He winked. "For articles, of course."
Wildcard's hands lit the air. Rainbow only caught enough to read "chaos" and "unleashed."
"H-huh?" she stammered, short on breath.
Ariel cleared her throat, drifting closer. "Wildcard brings up a good point. What's going on around us... what if we're in an area of pure chaos?"
"Pure... ch-chaos...?"
"Y'know... cuz of the Dark Side and all?" Ariel bit her lip. "It happened before, didn't it? In Verlaxion's lairs? Where she sprung chaotic traps for you? Your friends vanished! Now... it's happening here. Only there's no harmonic filter..."
"Hah! I knew I stayed around for something!" Discord shrunk back into just oneself and grinned. "Good thing I didn't see my own shadow on the Light Side! I would have hibernated for another book, at least. Maybe two!"
"Then... that..." Rainbow panted, hyperventilated. "Th-that means..."
Wildcard's goggles rattled with concern.
"Rainbow?" Ariel floated closer. "You're not looking too good. What's...?"
Before the Heraldite could finish that question, Rainbow Dash looked down. She gazed beyond the heart of the slowly swirling maelstrom of mountainous debris. Far below—past the floating rocks and drifting chunks of earth—she saw a cluster of reflective pale material. Like silver. Glossy, pallid, unearthly. The largest collection of chaos metals she had ever seen lingered far beneath her, drowning, engulfing.
Poisoning.
"Hrmmfff..." Her eyes flickered again. Two fangs protruded from her muzzle as her ruby pendant dimmed even more. "...Luna Poop."
She fainted.
And...
"Rainbow!" Ariel shrieked.
It was too late. The mare fell... plunged. She fell faster than gravity could allow—as if something was purposefully pulling her fragile body towards the nexus of metal.
Ariel flew after her.
Wildcard flew faster.
Sw-Sw-Sw-Swiiiiiish!
Wildcard skirted past rocks and boulders and floating minerals. For a brief moment, Rainbow Dash spotted him... saw the silver glint in his goggles as he pursued her into the heart of discordant energies.
And then she saw nothing. Her eyelids rolled over—hairier—and all she gave the crushing earth below was a guttural growl.
The blackness was her only respite.
You know what I find really odd? The literal moment this was posted, it was in the feature box. In fact, before I got the notification, I noticed it in the feature box. I . . . guess that's how it works, but either way, it's crazy. I guess any popular story that gets updated just . . . ends up in the box the moment you press the button.
cue high tension strings
But seriously... dang.
Ok, so it's the chaos metal that is doing this then? However, if it was such a large collection of chaos metal how did Dash even get this close to it?
Wonder what kind of critters you could summon with that much chaos metal?
I'm also now very curious if Discord's got any special senses now that he's out in full color, as it were. Also if there's any major differences in Dash if she takes off her Element in this situation.
And so, our intrepid easthorse plummets into a pit of the last thing she could ever want to encounter outside of Pinkie Pie' s Industrial Strength Rock Candy.
Tune in for our next thrilling episode "Chaos in the Pit," or "Heavy Metal Headbanging!"
Time for chaos East Horse
Discord is IN THE BUILDING, folks!!
...Well...crud...
Aw, shiet. I forgot about chaos metal.
Chaos metal, and not the light stuff they have encountered before, but heavy concentrations. I guess Rainbow isn't yet over that particular weakness yet. Hope they get out of there soon, I do not want to see if Rainbow will transform. I also have to wonder what made Discord decide to be more level with her, whatever it is it must be serious.
Y'know, now that I think about it the ancient book was filled with an excess of energy that affected rainbow in a similar way, but the Noble Jury was able to rig up a system that protected her and still allowed them to use the book in a useful manner. If the Herald is able to get past some likely bias against the stuff, I wonder if they could find some way to use the chaos metals to their advantage?
Heh. I was right, a chaos flux causes the vanilla zone to activate an emergency retrieval thing, it pulls the phantoms in to protect them from any sort of danger to them.
Chaos metals... wonder if it's a natural layer to Urohringr.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
And thus ends the silence. eeeeeeeee!
Wait huh?
I feel like this is a reference, but I don't know what to.
How the fuc... Did I post this before?
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Is this gonna be your thing? Cause that'd be awesome.
Oh shit....
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Apparently, THE chaos critter (who happens to be slightly dead at this point but he's here anyway)
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I doubt it's natural, Rainbow described it as "poisoning." I bet it's like condensation from the cloud of chaos this fragment of Uhrohringr is floating on, less gathers on the light side because it's harmonic and whatcrap.
Welp.
See you in the next phase, Dashie.
...wait, the book's not over yet? This suggests she'll actually live through this! If only turkey murder bird were here; she'd get a glimpse of just what Rainbow had to get through to end up at Verlax...
Oh, you did not just...
Discord ships it. :P
Hush...
Awww, Lunapoop.
Welp, hopefully nobody gets hurt at all!
Wait, Have the Herald seen Rainbow Dash in her Chaos form before?
Oh this will be interesting.
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Now, that I think about... yeah. How did she get that close?
wait is Dashie gonna unlock chaos mode?!!??!?!?
The five are extremely lucky if their ability to manifest around Rainbow is the only thing that was temporarily blocked by the chaos metal. However, the scene directly before their disappearance might hint at something worse.
This sentence as well as the malfunction of the enchanted engine indicate an absorbing mechanism, which means it does not simply cancel out effects, but rather takes energy from them, including the Element of Harmony. In this case the machine might either trap Rainbow's ghost friends, or inflict permanent damage on Rainbow's Element.
...Chaos Metal. Ohhhhhhh, goodie. WC? Kindly get her out of here as fast as you friggin can dude.
I mean so far so bad. But Rainbow has WC and Ariel there to help and not get shredded right?
I want to hate Discord but I can't.
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it will summon the single most slobbery, smelly, irate creature in all of ponydom.
Josho
The Bear went over teh mountain, to see what he could see,
And what did the bear see over the mountain?
A whole Lot of NOPE.
Falling from the mountains of madness.
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Cartoon Logic, you don't fall until you look down.
Does the machine layer absorb the harmonic energy from the dark side and give it to the light side?
If so that would be VERY interesting.
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To be fair I can't think of a single reason Bard and Wildcard called themselves the Desperados, when there's literally nothing in Rohbredden culture that equates to a Spanish language, nor any of the wild west motifs that would suggest the existence of desperados or gunslingers. Chalk it up to the price paid for daily updates I would say.
It will be a test of mettle, and of metal.
Oh right. These metal deposits should be expected on the dark side even more so than on the light half, but highly-concentrated patches like this could point towards past mining or an exceptionally intense event that caused its exposure. Unless this is the norm for most of inner curve, in which case...
Unintentionally? I mean, if this stuff originally developed from the bone of Discord and not through some other natural/chaotic phenomenon.
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Desperado
It's the pair that fights with bravado
Even when the enemies are hard, oh
You can see that they're the best amigos
Desperado
Even when their pals give them aggro
Especially that great big lardo
They'll always back up the Austraeoh
(East, East, East, East, East)
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Its very hard to, I gave up a long time ago.
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Perhaps her friends added an extra aura of harmonious energy to her that protected her enough until that point?
L'appel du vide - the call of the void. Chaos begets Chaos.
Harmonic magic is what is absorbed - and fair enough. I am simply surprised this universe's metaphysics do not count inherent pony magic as Harmonic as well.
Alternate Chapter title:
I had to google the title to get the reference; completely forget this track.
(and the Tombstone remix, which seems to be more well-known:)
Chaos metal..Welp this isn't good.
Ouch...
We call that one the Chaos Surprise
Side Waifu!
I'm surprised that it took so long for the chaos metal to start affecting Rainbow. Seeing as it's "pure chaos"
...has skirts written silly discord before? Discord is written really really good here.
Yak Smashmetal? Good taste.
The timing on the fainting couldn't be better.
Your Discord is too perfect! Side-waifu, hehe.