Twilight stared at the hole in her floor for a time, then turned to Discord. "I don't suppose you know anything about this?" she asked coldly.
Discord managed to look mortally offended. "Why Twilight, you wound me! Why would you assume I had anything to do with this...horrible event?"
"Actually, I just figured because you're the oldest being here, on the same power scale as Celestia and Luna if not higher, and weren't grabbed by the vines that you had encountered them before and at least knew enough to keep them from grabbing you," Twilight corrected. "I was asking for information. Though the fact that you assumed I assumed culpability on your part? That makes you look guilty."
Discord stared at her for a while, and then his grin split his face...literally. "Oh, you are such a treat!" he crowed happily. "I'm going to enjoy sparring with you." Pulling a rapier from his skull, he playfully brought it against Twilight's horn as though fencing.
"She's taken, and I'm not sharing with other guys!" Nefarious shouted out, wrapping his forelegs possessively around Twilight.
"Easily fixed," Discord joked as he snapped his eagle talons and took on...a more feminine appearance. "How's this?" Eris purred disarmingly enough to make one of Nefarious' arms fall off.
"...conflicting," Nefarious finally responded as he reattached his arm, only for Twilight to smack him in the back of his head with a wing.
"The vines?" Twilight repeated irritably.
"Oh, right," Discord replied as he changed himself back. "Sorry Twilight, but you and your beau are very distracting." He cleared his throat, handing the frog thus extricated to Fluttershy. "They're called Plunder Vines. They feed on powerful magic and skew the magical fields around them, sowing chaos. Don't trust your magic to function normally around them. And no, I don't know how to stop them. I planted them thousands of years ago shortly before Celestia and Luna sealed me in stone as a fail safe to ensure my release...but for some reason they only sprouted now. The reason they aren't attacking me is because I planted them, but that doesn't give me any control of them."
"That was...surprisingly forthright of you, Discord," Rarity observed in surprise.
"I'm so proud of you, Discord!" Fluttershy praised happily. "You've really come far."
"Must you make a fuss?" Discord whined. "There's another villain here! I want to look cool!"
"Do you have any more of the seeds?" Twilight asked curiously. "I can use them to isolate the energy wavelength of the vines and find out what was holding them back all this time. That should show us how to get rid of them in the now."
Smiling, Discord handed a handful of seeds to Twilight. "There you go."
"Hold these," Twilight stated as she handed half the handful to Nefarious. Donning her Pilot's Helmet, she surrounded the seeds with her magical field, creating the holoprojection of their molecular and magical structure.
"What are you going to do with these?" Nefarious asked, knowing this type of scan would destroy the sample when applied to the biological.
"I figure I can find a way to make them grow without thorns," Twilight explained. "That could be fun."
Rarity let out a dizzy gasp as she fainted dramatically.
"Wow," Rainbow stammered out. "I'm...not sure what to say to that."
"You and me both, pardner," Applejack agreed.
"Yeah...the less you know about that the better," Pinkie confirmed. "Trust me."
"...can I have a few if you manage it?" Fluttershy asked quietly, only to shrink as nearly all eyes turned towards her.
"Always the quiet ones," Shining murmured in shock.
"I'll take some too, Twilight!" Cadence called out eagerly.
"CADY!"
"I'll probably need a few too, Twi," Ratchet spoke up. "Vendra's turned the others kinky..."
"Maybe later," Twilight responded to everyone. "But won't you need to wait till they get here, Dad?"
"Oh I brought them with me," Nefarious spoke up. "They're waiting in Aphelion until things calm down."
"Then I'd better get things calmed down for the reunion," Twilight concluded as she dropped the magical field. "Looks like we'll need the Elements of Harmony, girls...and we're heading into the Everfree."
As each of the other girls responded with cheers, coos, or other noises to reflect their view of these events, Applejack approached Twilight. "Twi...could ah speak to ya privately?"
"By any chance is it about asking me to stay behind while the five of you scout the forest because with Celestia and Luna missing, Equestria can't afford to lose another Princess?" Twilight deduced.
Applejack gaped at her, then lowered her hat over her eyes. "Shucks...am ah that transparent?"
"Actually, I just assumed someone would raise that objection, and you were the only one asking to talk privately," Twilight explained. "Politically, the idea is sound...but there are three practical reasons why I won't be following it, aside from doing anything purely for political reasons being stupid."
"...o...kay?" Applejack asked in confusion, not entirely sure she was following.
"First, we need the Elements of Harmony for this," Twilight pointed out. She tapped the Element on her crown. "Who did you intend to get to wield this if I'm 'safe' back here in Ponyville? Sunset Shimmer?"
"She probably could, if we had the portal open by now," Nefarious pointed out.
"Actually, ah figured we could come back for ya once we had a safe path," Applejack countered with a frown.
"Good counter argument, but it leads to my second point," Twilight continued. "Safe path to where? I'm going to be following a magic trace, and only wearing the Element of Magic is going to keep my magic stable long enough to follow it."
"...fair point..." Applejack allowed.
"And third, I'm the only one who can use Plan B if the Elements fail," Twilight concluded.
"What's Plan B?" Pinkie asked curiously.
"B stands for 'Blow Everything Up'," Twilight answered with a wide grin.
"I like the sound of that!" Rainbow crowed eagerly.
"You would," Rarity grumbled irritably.
YEAH, UPDATE!
Also, I LOVE PLAN "B"!
7856687
Pretty sure Rainbow Dash basically is Plan B. She did level one of AJ's barns with a Sonic Rainboom.
ah, typical Rainbow Dash.
I thought Plan B was "BURN IT WITH FIRE!" or is that plan p for purge it with fire? I cant remember now I always go straight to N "NO KILL LIKE OVERKILL"
7856706 I prefer plan O. "What is overkill and can it be killed."
7856720 wouldn't that be plan W?
Sounds like Pinkie has some experience with... ahem... naughty tentacles.
Shut up Shining you know you'd enjoy it too! particularly if they have bubbles.....KEK
Poor poor nefarious why should a being of chaos be restricted to just one gender why not twelve! why settle on a single species either!
Well I've already said I'd pity Tirek but, now I pity the SIRENs too!
Also plan B well let's just set it to default.
so flutterhy i suspected cadence as well i mean primcess of love shes got to have awild side but the others nice one
7856720
Actually, plan "O" is what she wanted the vines for.
....all of my yes now belongs to twilight
Rarity: "I don't suppose there is a Plan C?"
Twilight: "C-4"
Applejack: "And Plan D?"
Twilight: "Dynamite!"
Fluttershy: "Um... Plan E?"
Twilight: "Explosives!"
Pinkie Pie: "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Plan F! Plan F!"
Twilight: "Fireworks!"
Spike: "I'm noticing a pattern here."
7856779 nope, plan O is "Orbital Bombardment"
7856687 so does the great and powerful trixie
The amount of yes fills you with determination
7856789 IM MORE A FAN OF PLAN N AND NO ITS NOT NUKE ITS ....... NAPALM
Twilight is on her way to become the 'best' princess!
At least, Celestia hear nothing about the 'thorn-less vines'.
7856844 Just don't give any guns to Luna. IT WON'T END WELL.
Do note that there are different tones. For obvious reasons the tone used here fits perfectly.
7856854 *starts collecting a crate of weapons, armor and related equipment for Luna*
7856823
You... do realize that I was making a sex joke, right?
Oh good lord is Discord/Eris gonna get in on this too? Should've figured after getting Ratchet's setup she finally gets her own.
I like this plan
Well it looks like Twilight's finally made it back to Equestria, so time to catch up!
7856878 s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0a/c1/cd/0ac1cd54a16e18dbb88127362d1e8279.jpg
Hehehehehehe...... I too LOVE plan B.
7857071 Only you... can start forest fires.
7856849
Discord probably gonna whisper it to her at some point at the right time to make her very flustered/embarrassed... most likely while attending some court business or diplomats for maximum effect.
Luna might be interested
....... ( has a huge flamethrower ) so....... no BBQ?
7856789 Plan G?
Grenades.
Plan H?
High Explosives.
Plan I?
Incendiary!
Plan J?
Just stop, you know the pattern by now.
And then it turns out blowing everything up factors heavily into Plan A as well.
Nefarious being conflicted, though A part of me thought of Madam Mim (Mostly because I kept watching her song as of late) when Discord became Eris..
Just like in Another Hatchling, Fluttershy is the kinky one
7856789 U IS FOR URANIUM...BOMBS!
7856789
Rainbow: Plan S?
Twilight: Supernova.
Rainbow:..........How?
Twilight: Well, you see. I have this missile that I can shoot straight into the sun........
Caught up now, and I have to say the Equestrian arc is probably one of my favorites, mostly because it's not like reading someone's Let's Play in book form. However, imo it would have been better if Twilight didn't get that memory dump. More drama that way with her having to get to know her Equestrian friends and family all over again - and the tension of possibly having to choose between her two families.
7857485 I was suspected (in comment two chapters earliere) that Nefarious will be really unhappy if in their harem will appeared another male (as one of reasons why Twi must do something with Sunset loss of memory and change form of every rebirth [aka. possible rebirth as male]), as i see,my suspicions were corrected.
Ps. Sunset loss of memories after rebirth is, like for me too melodramatic, so now all hope is in Twilight
7856789 "plan Z?"
"ZK-Class Reality failure event followed by a univversal rebbot and then using knowalge of the original timeline to stop this event from happening"
"wut?"
7857412 but plan J is Jager Bomb fueled destructive rampaging
Plan N Twily!
If you know what the N stands for, I'll vote your comment.
7857606
To be fair, there WAS a good deal of deviation from the games later on, especially from "A Crack in Time" onwards...
7858858 Nuke?
That's excessive.... I LIKE IT!
Very nice chapter, can't wait to see how Twilight deals with stuff after the plunder vines. I do like the contrast of this version of Fluttershy wanting tentacle vines while Red Team Fluttershy was not happy with the idea. Is it wrong I think Fluttershy could tame a tentacle plant to be friendly???
Is it wrong I want to see Eris with Twilight, Nefarious, and Sunset????
7856706 Plan C is Conflagration Combustion Convection Carnage, AKA C4,
7857525 Somehow I don't think Celestia will appreciate that one.
7859212
Keep in mind, Fortresshy's only problem with the vines were the thorns.
The actual passage where she addressed her issue.
7859212 personally I prefer C7 "Creatively Crafted Cataclysm Creating Considerable Chaotic Carnage!"
And if that fails Plan D "Duke Nukem"
or if im board Plan E "Exterminatus" because I have other more fun stuff to kill.
7856706 You're thinking of plan I for "Ignite".
The rest of the list of mayhem(solutions) can be found here!
7859223 Okay then. Just keep the vines away from anypony under the age of consent and I can see them becoming the favorite pet of many lonely mares and also being adapted by pegasi and earth ponies to help them get stuff out of their reach or do fine detail work when unicorns are not around.
7859122 Good one, but I meant:.....
NEFARIOUS!
Excellent work, Vendra. You do everyone in your adoptive family proud, and the internet thanks you for you for your service.
THE BANTER
I LOVES THE BANTER
*cough*especially innuendo-filled banter*cough*
I'm not sure who is more powerful at this point... Discord can make virtually anything happen with a snap of his touch-stumps, whereas Twilight can make literally anything happen with adequate time to plan and analyze.
First story of the combined PWNY-verse: Every Equestria will be overwhelmed by their own version of the undomesticated plunder vine. It will be up to the PWNYs to track the hive mind of the plants. They find Seft controlling it. Seft's logic is that this universe seems like it always makes the good guy win, but what if he took over the world using pleasure? How would the laws of the Equestrian universe react? Also he has never had a girlfriend.
7856844
Sounds like Twi is on her way to becoming the only princess.
Forgot an 'i'.
7859223 that just made me think of poor sunny's reaction to fortressshy:
*during canterlot invasion after "commandeering" a guard squad*
ADVANCE! we need to form a safe zone for the civilians! I SAID FOREWORD YOU MISERABLE MAGGOTS!!!!
oh hey twilight, sunset!
* soldier's heart burst from pride. Sunset's head burst for other reasons*