"This train ride is taking forever!" Pinkie whinged, slumping over the cubicle's table. Applejack slept with her hat pulled down over her face, and Twilight was deep in a book.
"What in the world are they doing up there?" Rarity tried to get a look at the lead car through the window. It wouldn't open, so she saw nothing. "Don't they know how to use a steam engine?" Fluttershy just cast a worried look at the parts of the engine's smoke trail that she could see, passing over the tops of the conifers.
Thump. All five jumped. Rarity reached into her coat and slowly drew her dagger.
"What was that?" Twilight snapped her book shut, and stashed it in her bag. Her horn started to glow. Thump. Thump.
"It's on the roof..." Applejack adjusted her hat.
"And it's... moving!" Fluttershy whimpered, retreating into the corner of the cabin. Twilight went straight for the end of the carriage, waiting about a length short of the door. Rarity and Applejack filed in behind her and braced themselves. Thump. Rattle. Whatever was on the roof, it was making plans for an entry. Click. The door slid open, and Twilight reacted, whipping out the first defensive spell that came to mind: a simple push.
Thud. A familiar voice yelped in pain. Twilight opened her eyes to see Rainbow Dash spread flat against the door of the next carriage, her mane blown back, her eyes wide with surprise.
"Oh my gosh! I'm sorry! Are you okay?"
"Yeah..." The pegasus wheezed. "I'm good..."
"Rainbow! What the hay were y'doin' landin' on the roof an' scarin' us like that?"
"Well..." Dash peeled herself off the door and entered the carriage after them. "Your train was running a bit late, so I went to see if there was a problehglk!" Applejack grabbed her around the neck, treating her to a friendly noogie.
"Daw, look at you, ya big lug, comin' to see if we're alright! Inn't that sweet?"
"Hey, I..." Dash tried to struggle out of the chokehold, but quickly gave up and chuckled, "It's good to see you too, AJ."
"So what, is it customary for military ponies to be greeted by assault?" Rarity quipped, returning her dagger to its underarm sheath. Applejack stuck out her tongue, and released the pegasus.
"Pff, military pony my ass..."
"Ya sure been pickin' up some of the lingo while yer there." Applejack gave her a light dig in the arm.
"Eh, I gue-"
"I wonder what's taking them so loh my gosh it's Dashie!" A fluffy, bouncy pink blur spilled out of the cabin and tackled Rainbow to the ground. Fluttershy poked her head out of the cabin.
"Hi, Pinkie..." Dash wheezed. "... y'know Rarity, you might be on to something..."
"We are gonna have so much fun!"
"Actually Pinkie, we're here on business first." Twilight closed the carriage door. Pinkie made a disappointed noise, and let Dash stagger to her hooves. "Which reminds me, what was it you, uh, didn't have time to explain in the letter?"
"We should be coming up on it now..." The pegasus pointed out the window and scanned the horizon, drawing the others' gaze. They watched silently, at a loss for what she was trying to pick out. After a couple of minutes, she pointed in a very specific direction. "There. See that pink cloud there?" Twilight squinted, trying to find it.
"... is that it? Did you call us all the way out here because of a pink cloud?"
"There's more." Dash grimaced. Sure enough, as they neared Trottingham, a few more oddities became visible; a few pigs fluttering through the air on tiny white wings, faint brown drizzle fell from the clouds, some trees in the distance could be spotted in bright pinks, blues, reds and yellows, and a rainbow started to appear, twisting and looping across the sky like a tangled ribbon.
"What in tarnation?"
"You see why I called you guys then?"
"Don't you have th-the W-Wonderbolts around for this kind of thing?" Fluttershy gibbered.
"We tried that. You don't wanna know what happened to our scouts." Grim silence fell on the cabin.
"Alright, this is the edge of the disturbance." Rainbow Dash stopped the group at a stream. On one side, everything was fine; on the other, the water was flowing backwards, the trees were decked out with Hearth's Warming decorations, and the ground was marked with a checkerboard pattern. "Remember the signal, Twi - if we get in trouble, just fire something big and flashy into the sky, and the Wonderbolts should come bail us out." Twilight nodded, and stepped forward into the stream. One by one, the others followed, even if Fluttershy practically had to be dragged along.
"Heh, just like old times, eh, guys?" Applejack tried to keep a relatively chipper tone, but didn't seem to have much of an effect - everyone just carried on what they were doing. Pinkie bounced around, admiring the trees; Twilight and Rainbow Dash were just focussed on the mission, while Rarity was more focussed on her mane, and Fluttershy seemed preoccupied with hiding from everything. "Never mind..."
"Ahahahah..."
"What was that?" Twilight stopped in place. Fluttershy squeaked, and darted for cover behind a rock. It smelled faintly of mint and sugar. "This doesn't make any sense..."
"Make sense, hmm?" A deep, male voice called, the sound echoing around so much that it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. "What fun is there in... making sense?"
"Show yourself!" Rainbow Dash yelled. Smoke started to seep from the ground and circle them.
"Ah don't like this..."
"Six little ponies, lost in the wood... such a shame if something were to happen to them!"
"What in the..." Rarity blinked, pulling out her dagger again.
"What?" The various echoes began to converge on a single point in front of the group, and the smoke thickened at that spot. A head started to appear from the mist, first two mismatched horns, followed by a long face with differently sized eyes, a single fang in the mouth and a wispy beard. With a wry smile, it spoke; "Did you think gryphons were the only thing Celestia was protecting you from?"
"Twilight, what are we dealing with here?" Dash nudged the unicorn, flaring out her wings and preparing to take to the air. She just stared, slack-jawed.
"I... I don't know! I..."
"Ohoho, Twilight Sparkle, how does it feel to be dumbfounded?" The stranger lifted a lion's paw from the smoke, and clicked its fingers; with a flash, he disappeared, and reappeared next to her. She jumped and shied away. The rest of his body became visible - a long, serpentine form, to which different appendages from all kinds of different animals were attached; a snake's tail, one dragon foot and one horse foot, one dragon's wing and one pigeon's wing, and an eagle claw to complete the set. "What's wrong? Never found a book about me? No tales of the all-powerful Discord?" He taunted, getting his face alarmingly close to hers. She backed away with a look hanging somewhere between disgust and seething rage.
"Hey! What's the deal?" Dash yelled from the air.
"And the great Rainbow Dash, loyal to the very end!" The stranger clicked his fingers again with a sly grin, and the pegasus's wings vanished. "However soon that end may be." She squealed in horror and fell from the sky, landing with a firm thud. While she groaned and burbled on the ground, he clicked again, returning them to her.
"Now see here, Mister Discord!" Click. The draconequus appeared under Applejack's hat, resting his head in his paw and claw, elbows on her forehead.
"Ahh, honest Applejack, always standing up for what's right..." he tittered. With a deft flick of his tail, he snapped her in the back of the leg, making her shout in pain, and forcing her to her knees. "... most of the time."
"Oh come on, this is hardly fair..." Rarity pouted, crossing her arms.
"How rude of me, Rarity!" Discord slinked through the air, like an eel through water, coiling around her shoulders. With another click, he summoned a heap of mud in the air above her head. She shrieked, and it covered her from head to hoof. "Your friends have been treating me like dirt, so why don't I treat you to some?"
"Should have seen that one coming..." she grumbled, wiping the mud from her eyes. Pinkie failed to hold back a giggle.
"And Pinkie Pie! The old element of laughter, a personal favourite of mine..." He grinned, bounding over to her and just lightly tickling her under the arms. She seized up and fell to the ground, laughing herself to tears.
"Okay! I give! I give!" she squealed, thumping the ground. He smirked, and started to circle the group.
"There's another one here... I wonder where she is?" He put his claw to his forehead and looked around, with comic exaggeration. Fluttershy curled herself up even tighter, whimpering in terror. "Fluttershy... Fluttershy!" he called softly, throwing his voice as he drew closer to her rock. She gulped, breathed deeply a few times, and rustled up the courage to take a peek out of cover. In this time, the draconequus had sneaked around the far side of the rock, silently crawling up to her ear, and whispering; "Boo." She screeched and leapt over the rock, and was quivering behind Twilight in a snap. Pinkie's mirth evaporated. The unicorn snarled and turned to the grinning trickster.
"Alright, quit the games, Discord. What the hell do you want?"
"Oh, this is going to be fun, I can already tell..." he chuckled to himself, before snapping again, summoning an iced cocktail from thin air, and sipping lightly on it. "I have a riddle for you all. You have until the Summer Sun celebration to solve it, and should you fail, or refuse, your beloved Equestria will burn..." Twilight scowled, staring him down. As far as she knew, this could all be an elaborate bluff, but with the magical prowess he was demonstrating, he might well be the real deal. She cursed under her breath, and made a note to dig up Diaries of a Planeswalker when she got home.
"Fine. Shoot," she growled.
"I've got a recipe. Three days, two thousand years and one angry pony. What does it all make?" He fluttered through the air with his mischievous grin. All he got in return was Twilight's deathly glare. "I'll be waiting on the ramparts of Canterlot at sunrise on the longest day for your answer. Good luck, everypony! Ahahaha, ahahahah!" As he began cackling maliciously to himself, he whipped the smoke up into a small whirlwind, blinding the ponies on the ground and making them hack and cough. By the time they recovered, the smoke was gone, the trees and ground were back to normal, and Discord had vanished.
"Did... did that just happen?" Rarity blinked, still wringing mud from her mane. Rainbow Dash frantically checked her wings to make sure they were intact.
"Nah, pretty sure it did..." Applejack brushed herself off. Pinkie Pie just about managed to prise Fluttershy off Twilight's leg and carry her, much to the unicorn's relief. Unburdened, she began to pace and think.
"Hmm... three days, two thousand years and one angry pony..."
"Ain't it three days 'til the Summer Sun celebration?"
"Yes, but that might be too obvious... it could be any three days, they might not even be together... it should make more sense when we have context. We need to research the other parts of the riddle."
"Why are even doing Discord's stupid riddle anyway?" Dash sneered, finally confident that her wings were in fact present and functional. Twilight huffed, her concentration broken.
"Because, Rainbow, we don't know what he's capable of. He took away your wings once, what's to say he can't do it again?" Dash gulped, and backed down.
"Ah don't like this any more than you do, sugarcube, but we can't take chances." Applejack nodded grimly.
"Besides, while I'm looking for clues, I can look for information on Discord, if there is any."
"I must say, if we're finding this kind of thing in our backyard, who knows what we'll find further afield..." Rarity mused, to murmurs of mild, worried agreement.