//------------------------------//
// Ch.17 The Alpha Zone 
// Story: Discord's Reign 
// by chief maximus 
//------------------------------//


DISCORD'S REIGN
Chapter 17-The Alpha Zone


"Huh?" Mac mumbled, stirring from his slumber.

"Spike!" The lavender unicorn snapped getting to her hooves, "I left him at the library when I teleported us all here!" 

Before Mac had a chance to speak, Twilight was nearly out the barn door. "Twilight!" he called after her, "You can't go into town!" 

The red stallion came clumsily to his hooves after her, still quite groggy from being woken from a dead sleep. 

"I have to!" she whispered sharply, suddenly remembering there were others in the barn trying to sleep. "Oh Celestia...I can't believe I forgot him!" 

"Twilight, what if you get caught?" Mac pled, trying to get her to see reason. "How are only five elements a harmony goin' ta stop Discord?" 

"I won't get caught," her eyes narrowed in determination, "He'd do it for me, I have to try."

Macintosh recognized a losing battle when he saw one. He despised the thought of his fillyfriend being caught by any of those dirtbags in Ponyville, yet he knew she wasn't about to leave Spike. With a sigh, he relented.

"I s'pose you aren't gonna be talked out of this are ya?"

A raised eyebrow gave him her response. 

"Will you please be careful?" 

"If they even laid a hoof on Spike..." she growled, "They will regret it." her tone softened once she noticed Mac's concern. "I'm just going to teleport there and back," she assured him. "Don't worry, nopony will see me." she leaned in, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before departing. 

As she walked outside, a loud snore from above startled her. She flicked her eyes upwards, relaxing once she located the source. 

Rainbow Dash had fallen asleep on the roof of the barn.

'Some watch-pony!'  she thought walking well away from the barn so the flash and noise wouldn't wake anypony else.

Just before leaving, she made the monumental mistake of looking back. Big macintosh was just standing in the barn door, his muscular silhouette outlined in the moonlight, watching her go. Twilight bit her lip in indecision.

For a moment, the worry etched across the normally calm and stoic stallions features was enough to make her reconsider the risk she was taking. After what the mobs did to Mac, she assumed if anypony spotted her, she would be taken to Discord straight away, though probably not without a few bumps and bruises. On top of that, she would have to suffer through whatever twisted-ness Discord himself had planned for the six of them. 

With great effort, she tore her eyes away from Big Mac's and disappeared into the night air. 





A flash of purple light and she was back at her home, only it appeared to have been ransacked. Her heart broke as she looked upon the scattered books, overturned furniture and general disheveled appearance of her formerly well organized house. 

Everything in every cabinet and drawer had been scattered about the floor. Clearly those who'd searched the place were looking for somepony in particular; she prayed they hadn't found Spike. If they were willing to dismember Big Mac over her location, she shuddered to think of what they would do to a baby dragon. 

"Spiiiiiike." she whispered as loudly as she dared. No response, save for the wind blowing through the open windows of the library. Twilight bottled her anger at those who wrecked her house and climbed the stairs toward her loft, almost not wanting to know what those traitors had done to her personal belongings. 

Her hooves came to rest two steps below the door to her loft, or what was left of it. She frowned noticing scorch marks on the wall outside her bedroom, trying to push her renewed fears aside. If Spike had to resist, that meant he'd been found. And if he'd been found...

Twilight's heart pounded. She turned her attention from the walls to the door itself, clinging to the doorframe by a single strong top hinge, though it rapidly lost its grip as she pushed it open. The clatter of wood on wood pierced the silence as her worry for Spike grew with each passing second.

Nothing but the sound of creaking floorboards greeting her ears as she stepped over the shattered door to her bedroom. Her bed was in shambles, the mattress and bedspread scattered across the floor. Her personal bookshelf had been overturned, as well as her writing desk and ink jars.

Big Mac's blanket caught her eye, it had been waded up in the corner. Upon closer inspection, another darker crimson pattern had stained the plaid fabric. A quick spell and the sentimental covering hovered outstretched before her. 

Twilight released a soft gasp, realizing what stained this blanket. Only dragon's blood had that strong metallic odor. She let the blanket fall to the floor and sat back on her haunches, trying and failing to keep from assuming the worst.      

"No...please Celestia let Spike be okay..." She prayed aloud, the emotional roller coaster she'd been on for the past few days sapping her will to carry on. "Please..." 

Twilight buried her face in the blanket, her tears already adding to the numerous stains adorning the plaid cloth she used to find so comforting. 

For the first time since this whole mess started, Twilight deeply considered an alien thought. 

Giving up. 

Maybe she'd just be better off trying to scrape out a meager existence under the rule of the god of chaos with Mac. After all this, it started to seem like a good idea. But it wouldn't bring back Spike, or Celestia, or the idyllic lifestyle she had taken for granted. 

'You forgot Spike, your best friend! You left him here to fend for himself! Some friend you are!' 

'Mac nearly got his leg cut off for you, and you recklessly charge into the belly of the beast that sent those stallions after you in the first place? Celestia certainly knows how to pick a personal protege doesn't she?'

'You raised him, and then left him here to die!'

The thoughts cut into her heart as they swirled around her head, growing louder with each passing second. Before long she wasn't certain she could hear anything but the negative, biting voices in her mind. She buried her head in her hooves, covering her ears in a vain attempt to shut out these strange ideas. They kept growing louder until she was sure she would go deaf if the volume increased anymore. Twilight gritted her teeth and stomped her hind legs to try and assuage the pain, but the voices just kept coming.

Finally, Twilight couldn't take it anymore. 

"SHUT UP!" 

Her shout echoed through the stillness of her home, the voices falling silent just a quickly as they had come. She peeked an eye from below her hooves, slowly raising her head and embracing the silence. A few deep breaths and she was somewhat calm again, leaving the blanket on the floor and descending the staircase in the darkened library to where Celestia still waited to be freed. Her frozen expression only made regaining her past drive that much more difficult.

Twilight sat on her flanks in front of Celestia, staring up at her second mother with no idea what to do next. Spike was gone, Luna couldn't recharge or recreate the elements of harmony, all of them were living in and sometimes underneath a barn, while all of Equestria drowned in a tide of madness.

Helplessness. Here it was again, permeating her every breath like an icy winter wind. If Discord wasn't the god of chaos, she was certain he could just as easily have been the incarnation of making others feel useless. 

'No, Twilight.' she thought to herself, standing on all hooves, 'You've got more raw power than anypony Celestia had ever seen! She said so herself!'

She exiled the negative thoughts from her consciousness as she stood firmly in front of Celestia. 

A purple glow and a low hum filled the bottom floor of the library as Twilight gathered all the energy she had left into the tip of her horn. 

"I won't let him win." 

The magic's hum grew in intensity as the energy built. Loose papers and books began sliding away, as if blown by an unseen wind.

Although a bead of sweat fell from her brow, Twilight's concentration held. Not since hatching Spike had she tried to contain this much power in a single, sensitive place. 

Her knees began to go numb as she pushed closer and closer to using a dangerous amount of energy. Only a few cases of complete magical exhaustion had ever been recorded, but Twilight knew every case had been fatal. Using all of ones energy for a single spell was a good way to ensure the heart and brain lost the electric currents keeping them functioning. The brave unicorn walked that narrow line, her only consolation in death being that hopefully her life force would be strong enough to free Celestia, and allow her to banish Discord once again. 

Twilight neared the point of no return, acutely aware that she barely had enough energy to keep her legs under her. Her vision began tunneling and flickering around the edges as the colors of the room faded to black and white. The silence of the library had been replaced by a constant ringing. She could see the wind from her magic blowing everything that wasn't tied down to the edges of the room, yet couldn't feel it. 

The spell was almost ready. Every ounce of power at her disposal gathered into a single point. The aim of a spell meant to free Celestia or take her life. In all honesty she knew it was her one shot at freeing the princess, but a prevailing worry that it wouldn't work kept her from committing everything. 

'You only get one shot Twilight!' she reminded herself, the strain making her grow weary as she fought to control the powerful spell above her head.

It was at that point she realized what she had to. She had to give this everything she had, if there was just a fraction of a chance it could work. It was better than herself and the rest of Equestria living in a psychopath's paradise.

'So, are you truly prepared to make such a noble sacrifice?'

That voice...it was one of those that had flooded her mind with negative thoughts earlier! It certainly wasn't coming from inside her head, though she was hearing it as if it were her own mind.

'Who are you?' she thought quickly.

'What? Don't recognize your old friend Discord?'

How? How could he be inside her head? How long had he been there? These questions came and went in the milliseconds it was taking to carry out this conversation. 

'How are you in my head?' 

'No, no my dear, this is about you. So you're ready to lay yourself on the altar of logic and order to be sacrificed so that your fearless leader can be restored to the throne, eh?'

Twlight didn't dignify that assumption with a response, not that she needed to. Discord hit the nail straight on the head.

'Well far be it for me to try and stop you, but before you martyr yourself; perhaps there is a certain somepony who wouldn't want to live in a world without you?' 

Discord managed to flood Twilight's mind with every happy memory she had made with the draught stallion she...dare she even think the word? Loved. However, she was somewhat perturbed at some of the memories the god of disharmony had retrieved. Those few of course being of a more...intimate nature.

'He feels the same way you know. You all may think you're safe out there on Applejack's farm, but my reach is kingdom wide. So, now that you know where your beloved's heart lies...can you go through with it? Will you forfeit your own life, your own happiness, Macintosh's happiness, for a chance at stopping me?'

A scene played out in her mind, forced on her by Discord. She saw Mac in the barn, as princess Luna consoled him. He wasn't crying, but the look on his face was one of pure devastation. "Macintosh..." Luna began, her voice echoing wildly.

"I'm so sorry." Luna continued, putting a wing around her stallion. A quick glance, a forced smile and a deep blush from the imaginary Mac was all it took to back Twilight down from full power. She fired, leaving just enough of her energy intact to survive the massive spell. 

'Of course you wouldn't.'  Even in her head Discord maintained his smug condescension.

If all of the windows in her house hadn't been broken out or open, the difference in pressure would have blown apart the sturdy tree. A cloud of purple smoke shot out from every available opening of the library, rising high into the night sky and intermingling with the pink clouds. Brief arcs of lightning flickered through the clouds as the blast of magic faded. Twilight sagged, lacking even the strength to cough and clear the smoke from her lungs. She could only wait for the smoke to clear, and silently pray her insane gambit had been successful.

As the smoke thinned, it became painfully obvious that her prayers had fallen on stone ears.

Any hope she had left now evaporated. She put everything she had into that shot, short of killing herself. What if she had played right into Discord's hands? By backing down at the thought of leaving Mac and her friends behind, had she fallen just short of what would have saved them all?

'Well, I guess you won...' she admitted, unsure if Discord was still knocking around in her mind.

'Oh no Twilight, my ultimate victory will be at hand soon enough. In the meantime though, I know you're trying your hardest to free Celestia, so please keep a better eye on these.'

A purple gift box with a red bow appeared in front of her. She flipped the top off, too tired to worry about what was inside and too apathetic at this point to care.

"The...the elements?" she whispered aloud. Twilight hadn't taken them to Sweet Apple Acres when she took everypony else, that much she remembered.

She couldn't help but give in to her naturally inquisitive nature. 'Why are you giving these back?'

'Because I asked for the element bearers, not the elements. Apparently the IQ of Ponyvilles angry mob population isn't very high.' he responded dryly.

'But...you stopped me from using all my magic! Why?' Twilight demanded of the voice in her head.

'Hmhm...' Discord mused, 'How are only five elements of harmony supposed to stop me? I'll need all six of you ready and willing to fight before you witness my infinite jest.'

Twilight was stunned, still sitting on the floor in front of Celestia as she tried to make sense of something that truly seemed to make none.

'None of that makes sense!'

'Sense...what fun is there in making sense? I really must be going now, the moon is scheduled to make a daylight appearance tomorrow. Anyhow, the fog should be rolling in soon. I suggest you pick your two favorite facial orifices and cover them tightly!'

'Discord? What fog? Answer me!' Twilight seemed to shout in her head, but to no response. Discord had vanished as quickly as he'd come.

"Twilight?" 

The young unicorn didn't have time to dwell on what Discord meant by fog, as her ears perked up. Her head whipped around to the source of the voice at the top of the stairs. Spike made it halfway down before Twilight tackled him in a excruciatingly tight hug.

"I'm so sorry I forgot you! Please don't hate me, you were asleep in the loft and I forgot and then the mobs surrounded the library and-"

"Woah, woah, slow down! And please get off of me, you're crushing my arm."

She stood from her position on top of Spike and allowed him to get to his feet.   

"Where have you been this whole time?" she asked, glad to have at least garnered a small victory.

Spike leaned against the wall, trying to catch the breath Twilight had just squeezed out of him.

"I hollowed out one of the wood knots in the loft to keep...stuff in. I was asleep until I heard somepony shouting in here." he explained taking a seat on the bottom step. 

"I think the teleportation spell you used to get everypony out of here woke me." he added leaning against the steps, "By the time I was awake enough to see what was going on, a bunch of angry looking ponies burst through the door. I tried to scare them off with my fire breath, but I guess it wasn't that scary..." He shifted awkwardly, embarrassed. 

"I locked myself in the loft, and climbed into that hollowed out knot." he finished.

"Okay, but why is your blood on Mac's blanket?"

A nervous laugh accompanied his response, "Yeah, I accidentally cut myself on a nail trying to climb into my hiding spot. After I was sure the crazies had left, I kinda...used it to clean myself up."

The young dragon glanced back up into Twilights eyes as she caught sight of a rather sizable gash across his inner thigh. He was genuinely expecting her to be upset with him.

"Sorry..." he admitted earnestly. 

"I'm just glad you're okay Spike." Twilight said, relief shining in her eyes. "When I first saw that I thought you'd been captured by Discord, or worse! Besides, it's just a blanket."

'A blanket that needs washing if I'm ever going to use it again.'

Twilight thought, her mood lightening momentarily.

"So, you're not mad?" she asked, expecting him to be at least a little upset.

"Well, I'm not happy. Looks like you owe me one huge favor now, huh?" he added grinning.

"I guess so." Twilight added, turning her attention back toward the stone matriarch of Equestria.

"I don't suppose you found a way to free Celestia have you?" he asked as the answer to his question stared down at him.

"Not exactly." the exasperated pony answered, throwing up both hooves, "I just don't know what to do anymore Spike!"

"I...I just want her back. Twilight admitted, putting her forelegs around the statues neck, and looking into Celestia's stone eyes. "I know she would know how to fix all this..." 

The cold, rocky orbs she looked into provided no comfort or solace. A far cry from the warm, caring eyes she had grown to know and trust. 

A single tear, reflecting the one frozen forever on Celestia's face rolled off Twilight's cheek and splashed against the princesses stone foreleg.

Twilight sniffed up her tears and fell back onto all fours. She turned to face Spike, his own dapper mood beginning to wane at the sight of his best friends despair.

"I wish there was something I could do Twilight..." he added, trying to if not cheer her up, then at least empathize with her.

"Me too Spike...It'll be a minute or two before I can take us back to the others." she said taking a seat on her flanks at the hooves of her mentor. 

Without a word, the young dragon followed and sat down beside her, offering what warmth he could on an unseasonably cold night. 

Even with Spike back, hopelessness found its way back into her heart. After a few moments of contemplation, Twilight spoke up again. 

"I gave it everything I had, you know?" she said referring to her effort to break the stone curse. Spike had actually witnessed her attempt, but didn't want to break her concentration by calling to her from the loft.

"Yeah, I saw. You were amazing Twi." 

He got another sniffle in response, followed by a weak voice Spike was unfamiliar with.

"I was ready, Spike. Ready to put all I had into that spell." Twilight continued, her voice shaking with every word as the direness of their situation slowly began to sink in, "Ready to give up everything if it meant stopping Discord...but I just couldn't." 

"I let her down Spike...I let every single pony in Equestria down." 

By this point her words were coming in bursts, accompanied by sporadic gasps of breath. 

"Twilight, you can't rely solely on yourself. There's a reason the six of you are the elements of harmony." 

"But I'm her student Spike! I'm supposed to be the one she can rely on! I'm supposed to be the one who's there for her in times...like these." she cried, putting her hooves over her eyes, "After all the times she's saved me...I just want to be able to save her..."

Spike shied away from arguing with her, but understood where she was coming from. Celestia had been an integral part of their lives since at least the day Spike was born. To see her like this, and to be unable to do anything about it hurt the young dragon more than he was letting on. 

"You were Twilight. Think of how happy you made her when she was alive." 

To hell with backing down, Spike knew he had to be strong for her. She had been strong for him after countless rejections from Rarity, though at the time they seemed like more of a big deal than they actually were. Still, Spike knew he had to do something.

Twilight held her silence, a few tears still falling from her soft sapphire eyes as she drew him closer with a foreleg. A thousand yard stare burned right through her overturned couch as they accompanied each other in the oddly still darkness of Discord's night. 

"You did everything you could." Spike said looking up at her, though her stare remained constant, "You don't think princess Celestia would want you to beat yourself up for the rest of your life do you?"

A soft cough broke her gaze as she glanced back at him, "No...but how do we stop Discord without her?"

At that moment Twilight noticed a silvery haze creeping in from her right, like a block of dry ice was a few feet away.

She stifled a gasp, pushing Spike to the other side of the room with herself as she watched what she assumed was the fog Discord had mentioned earlier billow in through her open windows. 

"What is that stuff?" Spike asked hiding behind Twilight's hind leg as it crept in their direction, as if it knew where they stood.

"Fog. It's got something to do with Discord, but I don't know what. Whatever you do, just don't let it touch you!"

As soon as Twilight's warning had left her mouth, they both heard a cracking noise, though neither could place the origin.

Again, another cracking like splitting wood echoed through the library as the fog inched closer. A light shone from the cracks forming in Celestia's foreleg, spreading rapidly to the rest of her. Twilight couldn't believe her eyes; soon the entire exterior of the formerly stone princess was cracked, beams of light shining through and illuminating the darkened library.

With a final crack, the stone portrait of princess Celestia shattered and was replaced by the genuine article in all...well definitely some of her former glory.

Twilight was in shock. Had that really just happened? Or was this some kind of devious hallucinogenic effect of that mysterious fog?

The gentle eyes Twilight remembered refocused on the world before her as her legs nearly gave in from holding her position for so long.

"Twilight? Where am I?" she asked wearily.

Even though they were about to be consumed by a mysterious and potentially fatal fog, the lavender unicorn couldn't help but smile. The face she had longed to see was finally among them once again. 

"We're in the library! But don't let the-" Celestia took one look at the encroaching mist and joined Spike and Twilight against the wall. 

"Discord's fog!" the princess exclaimed, clearly having some experience with it. Her terrified reaction was somewhat disconcerting. 

"Twilight we must get out of here before-" Celestia didn't even have the time to finish her sentence before a tendril seemingly made of the fog shot out, missing Twilight's nose by an inch or two at the most. 

"I can't teleport us! I used all my magic trying to free you!" Twilight admitted, covering her nose and mouth with a foreleg. Unfortunately, she left her ears wide open, a connecting blow struck into her ear like a buck to the side of the head. She was unconscious almost instantly. 

"Twilight!" Spike cried desperately shaking her in an attempt to rouse his best friend.

Celestia scooped them both up along with the elements in what little magic she had left and placed them onto her back.

"Hold tightly onto Twilight." Celestia commanded, "I may not have the energy to teleport, but I can still fly us out of here!" 

With a beat of her massive wings, Celestia gracefully jumped to the high ground of the loft in a single bound. A quick blast from her horn and they disappeared through Twilight's new sky light and into the night. 

After a short flight out of Ponyville and away from the fog that enveloped the whole town, and seemingly Canterlot as well; Celestia landed in a clearing a stones throw from the beginning of the Everfree forest. 

She gently lay Twilight on the soft grass, Spike's concerned expression illuminated brilliantly by the moonlight.

"She'll be fine." Celestia assured him.

"How do you know?" his worry outweighing his respect.

"Temporary exposure to Discord's fog only brings about nightmares. The density and power of the fog should not have been very high, I would wager we were only at the edge of the alpha zone-"

"The what?"

Celestia had momentarily forgotten she wasn't addressing her star student, and tried to simplify her explanation.

"Discord rules from the castle does he not?"

"As far as I know." Spike answered taking a seat in the grass next to Twilight as she mumbled, her legs kicking a few times in the throws of her nightmare.

"His power is immense, even by my own standards. I could feel it growing while I was imprisoned as my strength weakened substantially." Celestia went on to explain, the drop in her tone rather disturbing to the young dragon who was sure the princess would have come out swinging.

"If his power in concentrated in Canterlot castle, his excess power radiates in all directions, getting more intense the closer you come to Discord himself. A thousand years ago, during mine and my sister's raid on Canterlot, the kingdom was divided into zones according to the mental danger they posed to any who would enter. The alpha zone was the very furthest Discord's physical power could reach. The fog we saw earlier is simply a manifestation of his chaotic energy. If held under its grip for too long, it has been known to drive ponies mad."

Spike was hoping for a bit of a more rousing explanation, but nodded all the same.

"What about the ponies in Ponyville? And Canterlot? Twilight's parents live there!" the young dragon recalled, resurrecting his worry. 

"For now, the effects should still be reversible. How long had I been frozen?"

Spike had honestly lost count, but searching his memory he gave a good ballpark estimate.

"Almost a week and a half." 

Celestia let out a single huff, "Discord certainly is efficient." 

"Where are the other element bearers?" 

"Somewhere safe...but I don't know where." Spike admitted, "Twilight was going to teleport us there before the fog came in." 

"Very well, we can rest here until she awakens."

Spike nodded, curling up into a ball against Twilight's back, still kicking from time to time as she fought off her incubus.

"Princess, what kind of nightmares does the fog give you?"

Celestia raised her head from her laying position on her forelegs to address Spike, "I can't say for certain. I've never been infected." she cast a warm look of concern toward her faithful student, "I do not imagine it could be any worse than a world ruled by Discord." 

How wrong she was.





Discord sat on his twisted new throne, the once majestic interior of Canterlot castle now bent to his insane will. The occasional shout or cry from the city below played like music as he drank in the sounds of his handiwork. A look of tranquillity held across his face, the god of chaos seeming to meditate as his eyes flicked open, as if by a signal known only to him. 

'Celestia is free.'

He thought to himself, a smile coming across his lips in anticipation of the oncoming final act of his divine comedy. 

'It's about time.'