Lighting Can Strike Twice

by Lightning_Colt

Chapter 15: Out of the Frying pan...

Around us floor boards and pieces of wood started flying around and snapping together in front of us snapping to length, rearranging until it formed a platform. Above which a mouth materialised, just a mouth, enlarging into a large grin, it spoke with that weird creepy voice I've been hearing.

"It was so much fun, I couldn't resist." The mouth spoke. Twilight stepped toward the mouth boldly.
"Show yourself, you demented trickster!" She demanded. The floating grin faltered slightly before returning back.
"Oh okay, you got me" the mouth admitted. A pair of yellow eyes faded in above the mouth before the rest of its body faded into existence, it's body a mismatch of different creatures, but with one tooth protruding out of its mouth.
"Ta da!" It announced spreading its mismatched arms laughing happily. The creature seemed familiar in a bad way.

"Discord!" Twilight exclaimed.
"Wait… D…Discord? I thought he was d…defeated!" I stutter in anger and pain.
"How did you escape this time?" Twilight asked.
"Well you have the one on your left to thank for that" he replied simply grinning in victory. Twilight's head slowly turned towards me, a look of shock on her face at this new information.
"L…Lightning? W…why?" She asked, giving me a sad look of confusion, I return a look of confusion back to her.
"I don't know. How could I have done something like that?"
"Well it seems that the amount of conflict and turmoil I caused within his heart and mind was enough to break me free." He said simply.
"WHAT?!" I shouted. "YOU'RE THE REASON?!"
"Why yes my dear Lightning, I needed a failsafe for when I'm imprisoned, so I made a plan sixteen years ago to make sure there was a way I could escape. When I struck you with that bolt of lightning you were imbued with a lot of powerful magic, but not just that but Chaos Magic, the kind of magic I use. When that happened, it tagged you permanently, radiating out from you. Any ponies or objects in which you have prolonged contact would be tagged as well, eventually allowing a chaotic event to occur."

"What?! That's insane! The odds of something happening for you to escape a astronomical!" Twilight Exclaimed.
"Yes well, A; it happened, so there's no point in calculating the odds, and B; logic and physics have no effect on Chaos magic, hence how this magic can make any kind of phenomena occur." Discord replied counting the points he made on his lion paw.

"Discord, you said about doing this was fun, why? You are powered by conflict, not by sadness." Twilight explained`
"True my dear Twilight but when sadness turns to guilt, and in turn creates conflict. And that becomes more potent within one pony rather than two, there's nothing more powerful than a heart that contradicts itself."
He smiled at his explanation, looking around as red clouds started to rain blobs of pink ice cream. The wooden panels of the stage he was standing on merged together and he sank slightly as the stage turned into a large sponge.

Discord raised himself up in the air and snapped both of his fingers, gathering bigger clouds overhead.
"Now if you don't mind there are some elements of my plan I need to take care of." He mentioned before he snapped his finger again.
"Wait!" Twilight ordered running to the sponge, but he disappeared with a flash. "Damn" she exclaimed "he could be anywhere right now"..
Twilight and I stood there looking at the empty air where discord had stood unable to move for anger and confusion. I manage to overcome my shock and look at the ground tears starting to well up in my eyes
"That Bastard" I mumbled angrily "He finds this kind of pain is fun? This pain makes him stronger? And he thinks that I'm just gonna sit here and take it? well NOT ANY MORE! " I screamed at the floor. "I'm gonna make that bastard pay for what he did" I proclaim "I WILL FIND YOU, AND PUT YOU DOWN DISCORD!" I yell at the sky. As I finish the last syllable of my threat, a bolt of lightning streaked from the sky down towards Twilight. The world was almost in slow motion as she looked up and her eyes widen to see the bolt. Without thinking my hind legs lean back and then spring, launching me forward to intercept the bolt. I look down and see Twilight's wide eyes, filled with fear widen Ever so slightly more to see me in the bolt's path.

The lightning bolt hits me like an icicle in my back, right in-between my bandaged wings. As I flop to the ground I can feel heat around my wings and can see a faint orange light coming from my back. A cold sensation drops on my back, causing the heat and light to vanish, just before I slip into unconsciousness.

Cold specks dotted around my face as I lay on the ground, they warmed up from contact to me and I could feel the warm blobs trickle down my face, and pooling on the ground underneath my chin. I open my eyes to see that the sky is still filled with red clouds but the ice-cream is now brown, pink and a pale yellow. I slowly raise myself from the Neapolitan puddle and look around to see the ice cream covered remains of my house, the sponge was large and bloated from absorbing the melting ice cream. Twilight seems to have disappeared probably gone to pursue Discord.

I turn to try and find the road through all the ice cream, I start walking towards a large light in the distance. The ice cream has now become almost a swamp with a mixture of melted and whole lumps. Just walking through the thick blend of colours was taxing. The light is the distance was growing larger, in the darkness I could just make out large black lumps rising from the light. As I got closer, the ice cream became thinner and thinner, the air was warmer too. Soon enough the grass all around was just different colours. The light flickered and sent large black clouds into the dark sky
As I walked into Ponyville the destruction was unbelievable, tall flames engulfed the buildings. Ponies with terrified looks on their faces ran around in terror. I slowly walk around the blazing town as though the flames were not there, wandering around with no destination. That is until I see the library, flames dancing around the tree branches, give the tree the look of a huge flaming torch. I burst through the slightly open door.

It was almost impossible to breathe in the tree, the smoke was so thick I could have cut it like butter, it seemed to have the same consistency as it entered my lung s and left me coughing and spluttering for cleaner air. The walls of the library were dancing with red hot flames, the books acting as kindling for the blaze. I noticed some stairs and blearily climbed up them, my vision was starting to blur from the lack of clean air but I pressed on. I rounded the corner at the top of the stairs and saw what looked like a balcony, "Oh goody" I spluttered as I made my way out of the double doors and breathed in cool, clean air. A scream echoed out into the air. I turn to my right and see a purple unicorn "Twilight?" I ask.
"Why did you do this?!" she screamed.
"What? No! it was Discord! It must have been!" I said, denying her accusation.
I notice that her mane and fur was a dull version of the original colour of herself much like Applejack and Rarity. Was this more of Discord's magic?

Twilight mustered herself and her horn glowed, her face focused, thinking of the spell in her mind but was interrupted as a large branch fell in-between us. The balcony creaked with this new, sudden weight and broke off from the tree. As we fell, Twilight's horn glowed again and a pink sphere enveloped her and she teleported before the balcony hit the ground. I hit the grass covered ground hard, my head bouncing between the ground and the balcony wall, and I fell unconscious again.

Clouds swirled around in my mind, contorting and forming objects, white columns and stained glass windows depicting various battles, a long, elegant red carpet streaked up to the end of the room. The room elongated into a long throne room with a glowing figure at the throne. I walk towards the end of the room and the glow ebbed away to reveal the identity of the figure to be princess Celestia. She was sitting down on her haunches, her face looking at the ground with her eyes closed. I stand there, confused about how I got to, wherever this is and what Celestia's doing here too.

"Princess Celestia? Where am I?" I said looking around the room. Her face raised to look at me and spoke as she opened her eyes
"I am not Princess Celestia, and you are within your mind" she said calmly.
I stood ready to charge at the figure "Are you Discord?" I demanded, expecting the figure's demeanour to change, to reveal himself.
"No" the figure replied sharply.
"Who are you?!" I shout.
"I" replied the figure, standing up "am the spirit of the Elements of Harmony"
I stand in surprise, thinking what that meant.
"Hold on, I though Twilight and the others were the spirits if the Elements of Harmony"
"That is true, except that they are the physical manifestations of the individual spirits, however, I am the spiritual manifestation of the elements as one."
"Then why do you look like princess Celestia?"
"I take the form of Princess Celestia for the reason that her spirit was the last that could harness all of the Elements of Harmony as one."
"Wow, I knew she was powerful but that must have taken some doing."
"Every thousand years, a spirit is born with the magical capabilities to use the Elements of harmony as one. When this occurs, not only do the Elements of Harmony become stronger but a new Element is created from the spirit's heart." The Spirit explained.

The spirit carried on speaking.
"The most recent Element to be created was Kindness, this was created when the Nightmare Moon Spirit was banished by the Princess Celestia Spirit."
"Oh yeah I remember reading about Nightmare moon returning a couple of years ago. Twilight and the others took away her dark powers and restored her to Princess Luna. Oh and they also stopped Discord"
"Indeed, the six spirits defeated the Nightmare Moon and Discord Spirits. However the Discord Spirit was able to successfully corrupt the six spirits on their first encounter. An ability which he has repeated effectively."
"What?!" I exclaim at what she said, "How?"
"The Discord Spirit spread chaos into their minds by hypnotising them into the opposite of themselves, because of that, they have become a permanent source of chaos for the Discord Spirit to feed off and become more powerful. There is only one Spirit who can defeat the Discord Spirit now." The spirit finished as she walked towards me and stopped just in front of me. She lifted a hoof and stopped it inches from my forehead.

"Go young Spirit, awaken" she said as she poked my forehead. When her hoof made contact a strange tingling feeling spread over me from the point of contact as her hoof and the world started swirling and folding into each other into a speck. The space around me was dark wondering what to do. Pain shot down my side and back, wrenching me back to reality.
I slowly opened my eyes as sunlight burst into them. The smell of smoke and burnt wood filled my nose, and crackling echoes in my ears. I try to stand up but something weighs on top of me. I turn my head and see a large blackened branch laying on top of me, as I'm lying here I feel something dripping down my side. I turn my head and see a trickle of red run down my side and pool underneath me, I can feel the heat on my stomach but as I lay there the world started to spin. I place a hoof on my head to steady it and avoid passing out. I start sliding to the right to try and remove the branch in my side, but the pain almost incapacitates me and an involuntary shout of pain escapes my mouth. I hear the thudding of footsteps behind me and a scratching. The great weight is lifted off me and the branch in my side slides out painfully.

"OW! What the-". I start getting up but something sharp pokes down on my back forcing me to lie back down.
"Stay still, you've already lost a lot of blood." Said a familiar voice. More scratching sounds come from behind me. It stops, then something dabbed my side, cleaning the blood around my wound.
"S..Spike, is th..that you?" I groaned weakly.
"Yeah, " he said abruptly "What the hay happened? I was taking a nap in the library, and when I wake up its burnt to a crisp! Oh and this bit might sting." He added.
"Well Dis… YAAAAHH!" I jumped at the sudden heat searing into my wound "D…Discord has escaped, and he's hypnotised Twilight and the others, he made them the opposite of themselves or something. And I… What the heck did you just do?"
"What? Oh, well I kinda had to cauterise the wound, it wouldn't stop bleeding so I used my fire to DISCORD'S ESCAPED!?". The sudden change in volume made me jump. "TWILIGHT AND THE OTHERS HAVE BEEN HYPONTISED?!" He shouted again.
"YES!" I shouted back, Slowly standing up, the seared flesh stretching and acclimatising to movement. "What happened last time Discord escaped?" I ask the small dragon.

"Well" he said, sitting down on a pile of glowing embers, his dragon instincts still intact. "Last time, Princess Celestia sent all the letters that Twilight sent her back to Twilight to remind her about friendship, after that she performed a memory spell on the others and they worked together to imprison him again. But we haven't got any letters back so I don't know what to do." He finished his last sentence sadly and lowered his head. I look down at the small dragon, he is covered from head to toe in soot and ash.

"First off, are these Elements of Harmony safe? I think we're gonna have to use them… somehow." I ask.
"Yeah, they're in a secret part of the library that Twilight put a spell on, nothing can get to them except for me or Twilight, the spell even protected them from the fire." He smiled
"Good" I said "you get them and meet me in front of the library, Then we need to find discord."
"All right!" Spike cheered at the formulation of this terrible plan and ran into the wreckage of the library. While I made my way to where the front door would be, thinking of what to do when we find Discord.

Comments

[Rainbowblitz]

oh come on i hate cliff- hangers