• Published 17th Oct 2011
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The Elements of Discord - Midnightshadow



Evil stirs in the Everfree Forest. An unnatural storm, strange creatures... what could it all mean?

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Chapter 1

The Elements of Discord

Chapter 1

An MLP:FiM Fanfiction by Midnight Shadow

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic © Hasbro and Lauren Faust. Please support the official release


“Applejack!” yelled Twilight over the pouring rain, from what was left of her balcony, “We need three more ponies at the mayor’s house! Another tree just went down!”

“Cornsarnit! But we ain't finished here yet!” protested Applejack from the square below. She briefly turned back to the work-gang behind her, they were still working to clear the debris from a fallen tree which had badly damaged some pony’s dwelling. The wind screamed and rocked the normally sleepy little hamlet of Ponyville, sending leaves, branches and other detritus tumbling through the dark and murky streets.

“Leave it!" Twilight shouted, her mane whipping around her muzzle, "That tree's already down, there’s nopony left in that house and nopony’s going back tonight, but there might be at the mayor’s place!”

“Ten-Four Twi!" Applejack yelled, holding her hat on against a sudden gust of wind. Her friend was right. She turned again to the earthpony work-gangs, and hollered louder than the storm, "MOVE ‘EM OOOONNNN!”

With the wind howling and rain lashing at the normally quiet town of Ponyville that was no mean feat, but Applejack always had been a tough pony, a natural at getting things done - with a little help. Tonight however, the forces of nature were proving to be a trial for everypony, and keeping up with the situation was more than a full-time job.

The crash and tinkle of yet another set of broken windows made Twilight wince. If things don’t ease up soon, she thought with some alarm, we’re going to be in real trouble...

***

Normally the weather in Equestria was controlled by the pegasi ponies that ruled the skies. Storms were a regular part of Equestria weather, but they were planned events, orchestrated by the pegasi where and when they were needed. This storm was something else, something strange. It had come out of nowhere, was out of control, and getting worse.

Hundreds of ponies had been injured already by lightning strikes and storm-tossed detritus. Whole wings of pegasi were suffering from torn pinions and were going to be forced to retire or risk falling from the skies. Their exhaustion was mirrored in the physical, mental and magical burnout of the unicorns and earth ponies as they tended to injuries or dug through wreckage. But nopony would be left to fend for themselves, nopony would give up willingly, least of all Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow, a brave if foolhardy pegasus, was leading her weather-patrol wing, and fighting to dispel the worst of the thunderheads. Fighting against fatigue, she gritted her teeth and pushed harder. Come on Dash, this is just like threading the needle in the flying competition, you can do it, you can’t let everypony down! She swept back her wings and punched upwards through the swirling vortex, breaking the symmetry and dispersing the formation. For a brief moment, one brief quiet moment, she was above the noise and chaos. She lived for moments like these, when it seemed everything in the world was there just for her; the stars above the dark, heavy clouds were bright and cold, and the moon was full, its soft light illuminating the sleepy world below. Since Luna had returned from her thousand-year exile, much had changed, and now the moon shone brighter and clearer than ever.

Moments like that, however, seldom lasted. Dash’s curve upwards flattened out and her smooth trajectory down became bumpy. Crosswind! No!

Her right wing bent painfully back, causing her to enter a spin, tumbling end over end in the maelstrom. With a squawking scream of pain, she felt her primaries being ripped away by the force of the gale. “Oh, horsefeathers,” managed Dash, before further words were stolen from her lips and she fell, plummeting like a rock.

Something yellow collided heavily with her. Through the pain and the haze of her tumble, Dash realised it was Fluttershy. The normally quiet and reclusive pegasus was out here, for her! Dash felt a warmth that almost chased the pain in her wings away.

“I’ve got you, Dash,” said Fluttershy softly. Somehow, even through the noise, she was still audible. The wind twisted them around and Dash felt the mare's grip loosen, “But not for long... can you break our fall?”

“I think the ground’s gonna do that for us... brace for impact!”

The two ponies hit the treetops in a clutter of hooves, manes, tails and wings. The snapping noises as branches gave way was terrible, but the actual injuries were miraculously minimal. When the mad descent had finally stopped, both were badly battered and bruised, but alive. Muzzle down in the wet loam, as twigs, leaves and water all rained down around them, they started to laugh with relief.

“Oh my my my, this is just awful, awful!” came a posh voice, borne by what appeared to be a glowing horn. It quickly became apparent that the glowing horn was attached to a white unicorn-pony with a dark purple mane, named Rarity. Usually she would be found in her shop, sewing exquisite dresses. Tonight, she had been press-ganged into first-aid and healing. With the aid of some magically-enhanced lessons, she was the perfect field-nurse. True, she took a while matching swatches to coat-colour, but her dressings were second to none.

“How’s it looking?” asked Dash, groaning as she disentangled herself. She winced and fell over again in pain.

“A nightmare, simply awful!”

Dash moaned, “I’m never gonna fly again, am I? Are my wings torn off? They’re gone, aren’t they? I’m gonna be a groouuunddd pounndderrrr...” Dash started sobbing uncontrollably

“Oh dear no, nothing like that, but your hair, your mane! Awful! And yes, hmm... sprained ankle, I don’t think the tibia is broken, but you might have a broken humerus. Let me set that, thank goodness I have just the right blue colour for your bandages..."

Dash smiled weakly, fresh tears springing to her eyes as the bone was snapped into place by Rarity’s magic, and the worst of hers and Fluttershy’s flesh-wounds were sewn neatly and quickly. Whatever the weather, Rarity was Rarity.

Dash was exhausted, forced to to let her friend see to her injuries. She was down and out, but she'd taken the storm with her. Her eyelids grew heavy even as she felt her body rise into the air, light as a feather. Rarity's horn was glowing softly as the white unicorn exerted her magic, and the trio made their slow, painful way out of the forest.

As the darkened gloom of the trees gave way, Dash looked up in wonder. Where there had been nothing but black and boiling stormclouds, now the stars and moon were visible. Two brightly-glowing figures were streaking across the heavens, sweeping the last of the clouds away. One was white with a brilliantly rainbow-hued mane, the other was a mix of dark and light blue, with a mane of jeweled stars.The two princesses of Equestria had finally arrived and were banishing the storm from whence it came.

“Oh good,” mumbled Dash, “cavalry’s here."

***

Twilight Sparkle was worried. She'd barely slept a wink all night; she'd been organizing the work-gangs clearing debris and checking for trapped civilians, she'd been overseeing the assignment of temporary housing, and finally... she'd be searching the history books for occurrences of strange weather formations. Her library-treehouse had miraculously survived almost intact with little more than a few broken windows and the loss of her telescope, so when she'd at last been given a chance to rest, rather than collapse into bed, she'd lit a lantern and started reading.

Celestia and Luna had worked to disperse the last vestiges of the storm and were still doing their best to reassure the populace, but they were apparently doing little to investigate the cause of the problem. Everything about the tempest troubled Twilight greatly. Where had it come from? How had it grown so large? How come it hadn't been spotted and dealt with? The pegasi had had nothing scheduled, and whilst the weather in the Everfree forest unnaturally looked after itself, the idea that it could have randomly given birth to such a violent conglomeration of thunder and lightning was preposterous. Twilight couldn't believe it, she refused to believe it. Something had caused that storm to spring from nowhere, and she was going to find out what. With little but determination to chase away the fatigue, she would head into the Everfee Forest in search of answers.

Unburdened save for some rations, her sketchbook and some pencils in her saddlebags, she made good time as she cantered hastily out of town. The pre-dawn light cast odd shadows and washed the colours from her vision, but she was sure-hoofed and unwavering.

Her journey took several hours, but she hardly noticed; she was casting various spells for reading aetheric and thaumic discharge levels and correlating the results in her sketchbook. The picture she was coming up with wasn’t pretty. Her first instinct was being borne out by the math, and a basic atmospheric test or two confirmed things. The storm wasn't natural, not even for the Everfree which had its own strange rules; it had to be magical in origin.

The worrying thing was that the storm itself wasn’t the objective of whatever magic had been taking place last night, but a side-effect. The problem with that was that for a storm of such a size, there was very, very little which could have been a legitimate objective and very, very few creatures that could manage them. All of them were highly dangerous and nigh-unstoppable. In every case Twilight could come up with, the creature or creatures in question were little more than myth, or held captive by the princesses. Sometimes, she thought wryly, they were both. Of the very few objectives of such powerful magic, none of them so far had been proven conclusively. It was time to start eliminating known possible causes.

A nasty thought was percolating through her head. What if, the little voice suggested, nopony knows about whatever caused this? She shivered, partly with fear and partly with the cold, but she pushed such things to the back of her mind. She had arrived at her destination, the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.

Just over a thousand years ago, consumed with jealousy for her older sister, Luna had been transformed into a wicked mare of darkness and become known as Nightmare Moon. A year ago, during the Summer Sun Celebration, she had escaped her lunar prison and had sought out her old castle, and the final resting place of the Elements of Harmony. The Elements of Harmony had been successfully wielded by Twilight and her friends and they had released Luna from the grip of the madness that had overtaken her, and she had shed her evil intentions and taken up the mantle of true leadership, with her sister, once more.

Almost nothing of Nightmare Moon remained. The only exceptions to that were to be found here, in the deserted, ruined castle.

Twilight’s hoofsteps echoed eerily as she clopped through the ruined royal chambers. They stopped, the echoes dying away to complete silence, when she reached the raised dais upon which the remains of Nightmare Moon’s harness and armour was still visible, untouched.

“Well, so much for that idea," said Twilight to herself, aloud. She studied them carefully, they appeared harmless, devoid of any magical glow or signs of life, perhaps even safe. She poked them with a hoof, spooking herself a little when the pile collapsed. She was starting to wonder just what had brought her all the way out here, whether she had thought it through at all.

Twiiiiii-” came a noise, so soft that at first she thought it was the wind. She pricked her ears up when it came again, it was a faint, sighing voice, “Twiliiiight Spaarkkklleee..."

“Who’s there?” she asked, raising her head immediately. She stamped a hoof in warning and her horn began to glow, “I’m warning you..."

Twilight Sparkle, unicorn most powerful, bringer of harmony..." said the voices. There were more now; more than two, at least three.

“No, four," said Twilight, and something worried her about that, she shook her head, she didn’t feel right.

“Twilight, oh great and powerful Twilight..."

“So powerful..."

“So wise..."

“So beautiful..."

“Who are you?” she spun about, the voices were sourceless, the strangely seductive sounds emanating from every direction. She was starting to feel light headed, and worried.

“We welcome you, Twilight, you freed us from Nightmare Moon..."

“Broke the bonds..."

“Shred the armour..."

“Shattered the harness..."

“I freed you?” she backed away from the dais, twirling about in circles. Was it just her imagination, or was it getting darker?

“We were a part of Nightmare Moon, and now we’re free, thanks to you..."

“We thank you, Twilight..."

“Join us, Twilight..."

“Let us repay you, Twilight..."

“I, I don’t need payment. Thank you, but," she tried to back awa, but she was unsure of where she should be backing away from.

“We can give you gifts, Twilight..." the four voices spoke as one, seemingly behind her ears.

“Power, beyond compare..."

“Beauty beyond vision..."

“Knowledge, beyond understanding..."

“I, I..." Twilight fought against their seductive siren song, but they were in her head. They didn't even need to pretend any more. They whispered and cajoled and promised and sang, their voices growing, incessantly whispering and suggesting, syrupy sweet and dripping with promise. The voices didn’t let up, and now she realized she could see them; four ghostly pony-shapes, strangely bent and twisted, glowing with an ethereal light. They were... almost an absence of everything else except a pony, but without the pony. She felt sick, worried, alone - and scared, and they promised so much. As they spoke, the voices showed her wondrous things, amazing visions. She could become as powerful as Celestia, perhaps more powerful. She would take her rightful place first as Celestia’s right hoof, and then... her heir. Twilight would become a princess, eternal, beautiful, beloved, respected, perhaps even - the voices paused, exultant in their triumph - a goddess.

“Stop, wait, why, but..."

“All this, Twilight, and more, so much more..."

“We love you Twilight..."

“We adore you, Twilight..."

“Let us love you, Twilight..."

“LET US IN..!"

The sudden force of their will was too much.

She had yearned for years to be loved, to be appreciated, but the more she studied the less it seemed to pay off. All those ponies in Canterlot, in Ponyville, what did they know? Were they really her friends? No, the voices whispered, of course they weren’t. They all called her nasty names behind her back, even her best 'friends'. They called her egghead and bookworm and nerd. She had no choice. They would have to be shown what she could do, before they would love her. If they wouldn’t love her, she would make them love her; if she couldn’t have their love, she would command their respect, and if she couldn’t command their respect, she would have their fear.

The armour and harness on the dais glowed with unearthly light and rose into the air as Twilight exerted her new-found power. She looked at the broken pieces of star-metal, and with a single thought shaped them anew, placing them rightfully upon her body. She snorted as the straps and buckles sealed themselves according to her whim, why remain just a unicorn? she was more now, she was a god. Huge bat-like wings erupted from her side, dark as midnight and glistening wetly as they shed ichor. Admiring herself for a few moments and nodding with great satisfaction, Twilight laughed cruelly as she took off into the air.

Far away, brightly-painted window shutters flew open from the force of a sudden and powerful breeze, blowing a much-read tome to the floor from where it had rested upon a modest bedside table. The ancient eldritch compendium fell open, to reveal a diagram: a full moon, with four smaller stars around it. The Mare in the Moon was no more, but those stars were still out there. Four phantoms, ancient, powerful, terrible... and awake.

***

Far above the expanse of the Everfree, the sky brightened as the sun rose, but the gloom deep below in the undergrowth barely changed. The wolf-boar didn't care, all the better for stalking prey. The Everfree was home to many dangerous creatures, and the wolf-boar was one of them. It ate meat - it ate most things - and it was a vicious, silent predator. The yellow animal it was following was anything but silent. It was also lame. As the boar grew closer, it noticed that one of the animal’s wings was bent at an odd angle. Lame and flightless.

It readied itself, and when the moment was right, it struck.

It didn’t take long. A fraction of a second, a momentary flash of teeth and hooves, and it was all over. Bright blood spilled on the ground and the yellow pegasus pony set to licking her lips and hooves clean, daintily. She put her wings back into position and shook her mane out. Her trip had been short, but her recent magical exertion had been exhausting, and after all, she hadn’t killed anything for hours.

***

Twilight flew low, hooves brushing the treetops. They burst into brief flame before collapsing into cold ash as she past. She laughed deep and long, revelling in her new found freedom and power. The voices were exultant, whispering to her, soothing her. She was great, she was powerful, she had the world at her hooves - all she had to do was take it!

A figure below caught her eye, and she descended easily, swooping down to land gracefully in front of a blue unicorn pulling a wagon. The wagon was rather bare and nondescript. Paint was expensive and this particular pony had relatively recently had her entire life’s work taken away from her, because she had been weak.

“Oh Trixie, Trixie, Trixie,” said Twilight, shaking her head sadly as she folded her wings, “if only you knew how pathetic you look right now."

“T-Twilight? I-is that you?” Trixie looked up in confusion. She was hungry, rather dirty, and poor. Living hadn’t been quite so glorious as the once Great and Powerful Trixie had been used to, not since the escapade with the Ursa Minor in Ponyville. She remembered a shy, unassuming purple unicorn taking to task the huge creature which, in her boastful stories, she’d claimed to have conquered with all four hooves tied behind her back. For Trixie's troubles, she’d been run out of town - well okay, she’d fled with her tail between her legs - with her life’s works in ruins. All of it due to an unassuming snip of a unicorn who had displayed talent massively beyond what her meek nature had implied.

This creature before her, it couldn’t be the same Twilight. This pony was large, much larger than before, slender yet powerful, sleek and beautiful... and terrifying. Her head was adorned with shining star-metal and jewels. A harness and halter covered her head, neck and withers. Huge, tattered and yet regal bat-like, maybe dragon-like, wings sprouted from her flanks. She was similar to and yet quite unlike any pegasus Trixie had ever seen. There were very few winged unicorns, two of them were capable of ruling the heavens themselves. This mare was neither of them. Trixie was afraid, deathly afraid. What domain fell to this one, then?

“Oh, come now, Trixie, surely you remember me? Though it’s true, I have... changed some since we last met. You, on the other hand, have not. How sad. Perhaps," Twilight stepped closer to the petrified unicorn, leaning in close to one ear, almost like a lover, “perhaps I should give you a gift?”

Trixie was almost too frightened to answer, but she squeaked out, “No! Oh, n-n-no Twi-Twilight, you don’t have to do that, not on m-my account.”

“Oh but I insist,” said Twilight, giving Trixie’s ear a sensual soft lick, “three gifts for the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

“Please,” whispered Trixie, her voice tight, eyes wide, whites showing as she barely kept the madness bubbling in her mind under control, “please don’t.”

Twilight laughed suddenly, cruelly, and with a swipe of her powerful and armoured neck she threw Trixie to the ground. Rearing up up on her back legs, she struck decisively downwards, and Trixie’s horn shattered under the blow. Trixie was too shocked to cry out for a moment, before the thudding pain overtook her and she wailed loudly.

“My second gift is silence,” said Twilight, and with a touch of her horn to the mare’s throat, Trixie’s cries died away and she was left to thrash mutely in horror.

“My third gift, oh Great and Powerful Trixie, is lameness. No voice, no magic, no tricks. Just Trixie, forever after.”

With an evil bellowing cackle the nightmarish apparition was gone, leaving a weeping, semi-conscious and badly-wounded shell of a unicorn in her wake. Stumbling in her inability to walk, mutely sobbing in her inability to talk, with even the meager amount of merely flashy magic she had always relied upon gone, Trixie wanted to die.

***

The day had been a very strange one for Fluttershy. She’d woken up in the hospital, more or less hale and hearty, which came as a pleasant surprise after the previous night. She’d spent a good deal of the morning fussing over injuries and attempting to seek out her closest friends. She’d found everypony except Twilight Sparkle; the lavender unicorn hadn't been in the makeshift refugee camp, so Fluttershy had gone to the library, but that was empty too. Spike had managed to persuade Rarity to let him stay with her at Carousel Boutique, and had slept through most of it. That baby dragon could sleep through almost anything, chuckled Fluttershy to herself.

Rainbow Dash was healing fast thanks to some powerful potions from Celestia's top medical unicorns in Canterlot and it would only be a short while before she’d be able to fly again, so Fluttershy had kindly offered her house for the injured pegasus to convalesce in. Giving up on her search for Twilight, she'd decided to head home to prepare for her guest.

Fluttershy knew something was wrong almost immediately. The fence around the henhouse was broken, with the chicken-wire ripped and the stakes uprooted. Even worse, the coop itself was wrecked.

“Hoofprints? What’s this? Blood?” Fluttershy bent closer and gasped, it was blood! “My chickens!” Fluttershy could barely contain her horror at the sight. Most of the chickens seemed to have escaped but whatever had happened, it hadn’t been pretty. Somepony - and who could do such a thing? - had kicked in the fence, destroyed the henhouse and murdered several of her chickens in cold blood. She gasped in fresh horror as she unwound the scene in her head, and then finally noticed the tracks heading towards her house. Hoofprints again.

“Oh no, Angel!” Fluttershy galloped to the house and burst through the door, in time to see a yellow pegasus pony with her bestest ever bunny buddy in its jaws, shaking it as the frightened yet spunky creature fought for its life. “YOU PUT MY ANGEL DOWN RIGHT THIS SECOND!” screamed Fluttershy, and she bounded across the room and leaped, spinning in the air to give the intruder a swift, painful kick right in the midsection, throwing all three of them against the wall of the kitchenette.

The second yellow pony rebounded nimbly and grabbed the stunned rabbit again in her maw. Speaking through the grip she had on the nape of Angel's neck, she was deliberate and cold. “You got back just in time, sister. I’d keep your distance if I was you. I’ve had my fill of meat this morning, but with a little thing like this? I could snap his neck. Just. Like. That.

“Put him down.” Fluttershy was quiet, deadly quiet.

“Ohhh no, you and me, we’ve got somewhere to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you! I’m not your sister, I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know who you are. I want you to put the bunny back in the box and get out.”

“Oh we’re sisters alright, of a sort. Can’t you see the resemblance?”

Fluttershy looked. The mare was yellow, a pegasus, with pink hair and blue eyes. Infact, she was the spitting image of herself, but for one small difference. Where Fluttershy had three butterflies as her cutie mark, the newcomer had three knives - not nice knives like run of the mill butcher's or carpenter's, but ugly, serrated knives for injuring and maiming.

“You like my ugly mark, don’tcha?” asked Fluttershy’s doppelganger, “you know what it means. I know you know. It’s why my... friends, call me Slice'n'Dice. If you don’t come with me, I’ll do to you and your bunny like I did to your chickens. And I’ll enjoy it. So follow.”

***

The yellow pony-double led Fluttershy the back way into the Everfree Forest, through paths less tread, to a non-descript glade. She marched triumphantly to the center, wherein was a dead patch of grass that looked somehow twisted. She did a strange dance and suddenly the rocks surrounding the dead circle began to glow a weak violet, and a whirlwind sprang up in the center.

“Come, Fluttershy,” beckoned Slice’n’Dice. She smiled cruelly when Fluttershy gasped, “What, you thought we didn’t know about you? Follow me into the circle and I promise nothing will happen to your friend.”

“His name is Angel.”

“Nothing will happen to Angel, if you do as I say. If you don’t, well... I’ll be in the wrong place without my objective. All I’ll have brought back is a tiny little snack.”

Please,” whispered Fluttershy, “I’ll do what you say, just please don’t hurt him.” Fluttershy stepped closer to the growing whirlwind hesitantly.

“Hurry up you incompetent coward, it’ll open any second and your bunny will die soon after if you aren’t with me.”

Fluttershy shook, but not with fear. She was no magic-wielding unicorn, but she knew what magic felt like. She had only one chance and she wasn’t going to waste it. Acting fearful, acting timid, acting dumb in the face of the rapidly growing tirade of verbal abuse Slice'n'Dice was hurling at her, she bid her time until the moment came. Then she struck.

She leaped, and with a throw of her head she knocked the rabbit clear of the other pony’s mouth. Angel squealed with pain as some fur and skin tore off with the impact, but he was thrown clear of the circle just in time.

“Angel! Run! Tell the oth-”

With a slap of pressure that set his ears ringing, Angel watched the tempest pop out of existence.

The glade was as silent and empty as it had been before their arrival.

Angel was safe, relatively speaking. For all the attitude he gave Fluttershy, he did love his mistress. He would do right by her. The only problems were that he was a small rabbit, injured and bleeding, and that he was lost in a large and dangerous forest, alone.