Chapter 1: It's Just a Dream
"Ugh...where am I?" The lavender colored unicorn moaned as she slowly lifted herself up. Once balanced on all four hooves, Twilight Sparkles pranced around in a circle to observe her new surroundings...nothingness. "I must be dreaming," she sighed tiredly “because no pony can be in a comfy warm bed one minute and in whatever this place is the next. It's just impossible." Knowing that staying put wouldn't serve any purpose, even if this was a dream, Twilight galloped in the only logical direction in this black emptiness, forward.
Glancing to and fro in hope of finding at least something besides black Twilight noticed that she could oddly she herself clearly, even though there was no obvious light source. Her cutie mark, which consisted of a deep pink, six pointed symmetrical sparkle surrounded by five smaller sparkles of white, was still intact on her flank along with her mane and tail, both long, straight, and navy blues in color with a single stripe of pink and purple through the center. With at least herself looking perfectly fine she continued her adventure in dreamland.
"If something soon don’t happen I'm going to wake up." Twilight mumbled irritably to herself. However, no sooner as the words escaped her lips she bumped into a cold solid object. Looking up with purple eyes wide open in anticipation and a sigh of relief, she began to speak, "Finally something besides black, black, and more black!" but instantly stopped once she realize what was in front of her. An express of relief and excitement quickly turned expressionless save for the glint of fear in her now constricted eyes for what stood before her was Discord. Even in a dream Discord was still a beast to behold. With the head of a horse topped with a deer and goat's horn, a fang and snake's tongue, a torso and an arm of an eagle with the other arm being that of a lion's, a leg of both a lizard and goat, wings from a pegasus and bat, and finally a tail similar to that of a dragon, even the bravest of ponies would fear the sight of the hideous creature.
"WH-what the..."the young unicorn stammered as she stepped backwards, "It can't be you...we defeated you...oh just a statue." Realizing that it was just a mere stone statue of the beast, Twilight Sparkle turned her back to it and started to walk away. "Time to get out of Creppyville and wake the hay up."
"My my, how rude of you! Haven't you learnt anything about friendship or mannerism...dear friend?"
A cold wave of terror swept through every fiber of the Twilight's body freezing her instantly. As a bead of cold sweat gently ran down the center of her face, she swallowed the lump of fear in her throat and quickly glanced behind her back. Nothing. With her head still turned, Twilight resumed her forward, but hastens, gallop. Closing her eyes, she let out a slight sigh before turning her head back around. Once open, instead of the vast emptiness the she had grown use to; the gray petrified face of Discord appeared just a hair's width away from Twilight's own. Jumping back, she crouched down like a cat ready to pounce at her prey, and pointed her horn, which matched her lavender coat, at him.
"Oh my, you should she the look on your face Twilight dear!" Discord chuckled in a deep yet whimsical voice. And to Twilight greatest fear, his lips moved to match the words. Soon followed by his nick, then torso, followed by his hips then legs, Discord stood erect on the stone block that he was mounted to. Glaring down at the unicorn he continued, “Surprise to see me move? This is a dream after all therefore, as I'm sure such a studious lil pony like yourself, anything can happen."
Standing her ground, with now mixed emotions of fear, anger, and confusion, Twilight growled at her former foe, "Why and how are you in my head!? The other five ponies and myself defeated you with the Element of Harmony. You should have been whipped out of existence!" With eyes glued on him, she watched as he gently stroked the scruff of hair on his chin after hearing Twilight's questions. Noticing that the monstrous being was stuck to the stone slab, she ever so slowly rose from her cat-like stance, relaxing her upraised tail and tilting her head upwards to stare the beast in the face.
"Perfect." Discord clapped with an odd happy tone in his voice as he watched the unicorn begin to relax. "Firstly yes, you six little ponies did manage to beat me. A feat, I might add, that surprise even me. However," he paused as a devilish grin formed on the grey, statue's face, "it seems that you forgot to beat them 'me' that was inside of 'you'. I'm sure you know what I mean, my little pony...or maybe I should say my little unicorn?" He question Twilight with raised eyebrows.
"Lies!" She shouted. "I broke free from you curse once I remembered the times with the other ponies. The same goes for everyone else! With my memory spell, the strong bonds of friendship we all share, and with the Elements of Harmony, we all broke free of your curse and destroyed any trace of it and you know it!" With anger now in place of fear, her horn began to glow surrounded by a light purple tinted aura.
"Oh no no no. Now you're getting all tense again. Relax dear, I can’t hurt you nor can you hurt me." Discord informed her with a large, evil smile plastered on his face. "Continuing on," he stared once Twilight dispelled the aura around her horn, "you, my dear, didn't quite...how should I put it...recover fully like the others. Seriously, with the amount of discord and instability inside of you it’s a wonder you even recovered as you did."
"What are you getting at Discord?"
Pleased with the look of hatred that was forming in the young unicorn's purple eyes, the monster laughed, "Ha ha ha. Well then, let’s recall the time when you ended up, how did you put it, tardy with one of your peachy letters to her Royal Highness Celestia. Don't you think you were acting a bit like me that...?”
"I acted nothing like you that day!" She objected defensively. "I was just, just, I just wasn't thinking straight. I let my fears get the best of me. Nothing more nothing less."
"Oh but it was something more dear, something much more. And thankful for the events that day I shall have my revenge on everypony, as you like to say."
"Not If I got anything to do with it!"
"But you do. You have everything to do with this. You and the element that you represent, magic, have everything to do with what’s in store for you and everypony in Equestria."
With panic and concern entering the mix of emotions, Twilight stomped her hoof and shouted, "Enough Discord! If you think I'm gonna harm my friends or anypony then you're horribly mistaken. I represent one of the Elements of Harmony, magic. I am one of the ponies that saved this land not once but twice. And now that I think about it I really don't know why I'm so bothered by your ranting. It's all just a dream. It isn't real! And it's about time for me to wake up and have a perfectly normal day with everypony!"
Overfilled with joy and satisfaction at Twilight's rebuttal, the statue shook his head in laughter. Regaining what little composure the beast had, he began one last speech. "Indeed it is time to say goodbye. Too bad we couldn't talk more; I was having so much fun. I'll just leave you to fret over these last tidbits of what cannot happen." Watching as her eyes were now beginning to twitch with annoyance at his attempt to mock her, Discord leaned towards her and concluded his spiel. “One: there is a dark truth behind those pretty little stones of the Elements of Harmony, two: as I mention there is another set of elements, the Elements of Magic, and finally three: I will now disappear for good this time. Forever lost in the history of friendship and harmony." With the unicorn scowling and gritting her teeth, he doubled over in a fit of laughter and began to slowly dribble and transforming into a pool of clear liquid. “Goodbye Twilight Sparkle. Goodbye!" And with that he fell to the black ground, disappearing completely into liquid.
Standing there, bewildered, Twilight stared at the clear, almost invisible pool of liquid. Now more than ever she wanted some sort of closure to this nightmare. Gathering up enough courage she trotted carefully towards the pool, waiting for anything to just pop out of it. With only her reflection staring back at her, the unicorn turned around and began to walk away. "This is just too crazy." As if that was the queue for the nightmare to end, cracks appeared all around her and the light of reality began to sweep over her body. Closing her eyes, a smile started to form on Twilight's face as the light warmed and soothed her tired and troubled body.
On the brink of waking from the nightmare a thunderous splash grabbed the unicorn's attention. Five shadowy figures were half raised from the pool when Twilight turned around. On their necks shone the golden necklaces that should've hold the gems of the Elements of Harmony. Instead, a single diamond of red, orange, green, sky blue and violet was in their place. Barely able to see with the combing lights of the shadow ponies and the light piercing through the darkness, Twilight manage to make out a sixth being rise up. Once station between the other five, purple colored gems appeared on the shadow figure's forehead. Twilight knew all too well what the gem was, for it was identical to the one on her tiara that represented the Element of Magic. With one hoof raised to shade her eyes from the blinding light show, she wasn't able to block the image of all six ponies grinning, exposing six sets of white razor sharp teeth. With the darkness now completely replaced with blinding light, she could merely watch as the six being launched towards her with their mouths open, ready for their feast.
******
"NOOO!" and with a terrifying scream Twilight Sparkle jumped up from her slumber. Panting and covered with sweat, she glanced around to see her shelves of neatly stacked books surrounding her. Plopping down on her moisten pillow, she caught a glimpse of her pet dragon Spike lying on the floor. With her two front hooves she lifted herself up and glanced puzzling at the purple and green baby dragon. "What are you doing on the floor Spike?" she groaned.
"What am I doing?" He started. "For starters I wouldn't be down here if you just woke up when I started calling you." Standing up, the little dragon grabbed a piece of yellow parchment paper rolled up with a red ribbon and a golden seal with C imprinted on it, Spike then continued, "And screaming unexpectedly tends to frighten and cause dragons to fall over you know."
With a disgrunted look on her face, Twilight looked at her lightly colored pet and mumbled "Well pardon me for waking up...and is that letter from the Princess?"
"Sure is." The dragon replied. "I've been trying to wake you up for the past couple of hours but nooo. Besides you were starting to freak me out when your horn started to shot little magic ball and you twisting and turning. What kind of nightmare were you having?"
With more interest in the letter, Twilight ignored Spike's question and demanded, “What did the Princess have to say?"
"Oh nothing much. She's just going on a vacation with Luna for a while and said for you to just take it easy for a week or so." Looking closer at his unicorn master, he started to giggle childishly. "Man, you should really look at your mane Twi; it's in worst shape then the broom you threw out yesterday."
Annoyed at the insult, she grabbed a nearby mirror with her magic and levitated it in front of herself to see what kind of mess awaited her. With her normally straight bang bent out of shape and her mane puffed out, similar to that of her friend Pinkie pie, Twilight quickly grabbed a brush with a quick sparkle of her horn and straighten out the mess. Pushing back the covers of her bed, she landed on all four hooves and walked over towards the balcony door to embrace the morning sunlight.
Opening the brown, wooden door, she notice that the sun was awfully high in the sky and that the ponies of Ponyville were quite active for what Twilight thought was morning. Returning back inside from the balcony, which rested on a large branch of a tree that served as the town’s library and her residence, she called to Spike with a hint of concern in her voice. “I forgot to ask but what time is it?"
Glancing at the clock on the first floor, Spike responded “Almost noon. Like I said, I was trying to wake you for hours."
Rushing down the stairs from the second floor, Twilight look in disbelief at the massive grandfather clock that stood on the first floor. Sure enough, it was only a few minutes away from midday. Sigh heavily for sleeping in several hours more than usual, Twilight, once again putting her magic to good use, grabbed bowl of green-leaf vegetables from her fridge and began to nibble on it at a wooden table in the middle of the floor. Munching on a ruby the size of the unicorn's hoof, Spike grinned at his master's obvious self-disappointment as he sat down on a stool, also made from wood, on the opposite side of the table.
"At least the day can't be any worst then your case of bedhead." He nonchalantly joked.
Not noticing the shot of venom from her eyes, Twilight took a glace out the window. With the day half gone and every pony, unicorn, and pagasus of almost every color prancing about, she thought, "What can go wrong on a day like this?" Watching her pet dragon Spike nibble away on his ruby, she continued eat her salad dismissing any significance of the dream she had.
"...it was just a dream. Nothing more, nothing less."