And the Winner is.... · 11:33pm May 29th, 2018
The Return of Harmony Part 1 (Flipped!)
For starters my version of things, at its barest bones, would be very similar to the show. Discord breaks out, causes havoc, stymies the heroes, then gets beat by them.
The actual execution on the other hand...
The story starts off pretty much the same. Discord breaks out of his statue and starts looking forward to causing all kinds of trouble for Equestria. Rather unexpectedly though, Celestia and Luna are waiting for him with the Elements of Harmony (The accessories, not the bearers) to blast him back. Naturally this doesn't work, and Discord takes a second to taunt both of them before vanishing. Luna is livid wondering what Discord might've done to make the Elements not work, but Celestia already has a good idea of what happened.
Cut to... Ponyville in absolute chaos. Discord hasn't wasted anytime in flipping the crazy up to eleven, and all the Flipped Six (plus Twilight) are doing everything they can to try and fix things. Time Turner is organizing relief teams, Thunderlane and Big Mac are running themselves ragged taming cotton candy clouds and rampant critters respectively, Ditzy and Cheerilee are just trying to get the children someplace safe and quiet, and Spike's balancing trying to help with musing over what Ink Blot will think when he reads this article (at least he is until he realizes all his quill ink has somehow turned into orange juice). Then Shining Armor shows up with the Royal Guards. This isn't a relief effort from Canterlot, though, they're here for the Flipped Six. Most of them have objections to leaving, but upon hearing the summons is from the Princesses themselves they agree to come along.
Up in Canterlot the teams meets with Celestia and she gives the same exposition as canon. How she and Luna stood up to Discord before and now he's escaped, but they can't seal him again because the Elements of Harmony are now bound to Spike and his friends. She really, really didn't want to disrupt their lives with this, but there's no other choice as nothing else has a chance of stopping Discord. Thankfully, Spike and the others are more than willing to take up the Elements again to save Equestria. Just as they put them on, however, Discord shows up!
Discord has a good laugh, both at Celestia's attempts to recapture him and now over the fact that she thinks she can stop him with "A klutz, a bureaucrat, a school teacher, a second-string weather stallion, a farmer, and a journalist in a doofy hat that relies on his pet dragon for everything".
The Flipped Six (and Twilight) take exception to that.
Unfortunately when they try to blast Discord nothing happens. He has another good laugh and reveals (surprise surprise) the Elements they're wearing are fake (he's swapped the real ones with duplicates made of foil-wrapped chocolate with rock-candy gems). Celestia is beside herself, and Discord just has another good laugh saying that even with the Elements the Flipped Six could never even dream of beating him. Since they seem determined to try, though, he lets them take a stab at it. He gives the whole "twists and turns, end where you began" rhyming clue before snapping out.
The team is distraught at first, but figure out in short order that Discord probably meant the hedge maze in the castle gardens (twists and turns and all that). They head out to explore it and find the Elements, and Twilight is ready to come along but Spike stops her. He almost lost her when they went against Nightmare Moon, and he's dreading what a guy like Discord might do to her. Despite her protests, Spike convinces Twilight to wait for them at the castle before heading out to the maze with the others. Twilight decides that if she's staying behind on this one she'll at least make herself useful and goes to do some research on Discord and his riddle. Something in the rhyme isn't sitting well with her and she's determined to figure out what it is before Spike and the others get back.
Subsequently, that means the following scenes would be interspersed with an occasional aside to Twilight pouring over scrolls in the archives (Celestia gave her permission since the lock for it grew legs and ran away on its own), trying to question the Princesses as they run around putting out figurative and literal fires Discord has been starting, and puzzling like crazy over that riddle.
So at the maze things go as canon to start. Discord takes Spike's horn as well as Ditzy and Thunderlane's wings then allows them to enter the maze to look for the Elements, splitting them up the second they enter (no point in messing with expectations at this point). The twist comes when he tries to tempt each of them off the path.
First he tries Thunderlane, showing him a mirror that reflects a meaner version of the pegasus. Mirror-lane expresses every negative thought Thunderlane has ever had about his friends or family, and Discord tries to convince Thunderlane that it's his truest self. If he's been denying it, how can he call himself the Element of Honesty? Thunderlane, however, sees the ruse for what it is and refuses to fall for Discord's trick. He races off to find the others, ignoring the mirror and Discord's taunts.
Ditzy Doo is next, but she's even worse. Even when she enters a cloud of bubbles filled with memories (both real and imagined) of ponies laughing at her and making fun of her she just brushes it all off. Ditzy knows she's a bubble-headed klutz after all, she just doesn't care as long as she's making somepony (especially Dinky Doo) happy! Discord is about to try and force the issue when Spike shows up and he elects to vanish and try somepony else.
Big Mac winds up being strike three. He opens an exit from the maze for Mac and tries to force a conflict of loyalties like what happened to Rainbow Dash in canon. Big Mac can keep wandering around the maze, or he can leave and run back to Sweet Apple Acres which is in dire need of his help according to Discord. Mac just keeps walking though, reasoning that once he and the others have dealt with Discord his farm and family will be safe.
At this point Discord is one-hundred-and-ten-percent done with playing around and tries to forcefully discord Big Mac. Mac, however, sees the attack coming and just kicks Discord. Hard. Through several of the hedge walls. This coincidentally knocks several of them over and lets the team reunite before Discord can even try to pull anything on Spike, Time Turner, or Cheerilee
Reunited, the Flipped Six race to the center of the maze and recover their Elements. Just in time as a somewhat-livid Discord arrives ready to throw down. He just figures he'll transfigure the Flipped Six into trees or something to stop them, but the Elements shield their bearers as they did when they faced Nightmare Moon. Before he can even react, the Orbital Friendship Canontm fires and Discord is turned to stone once more!
Cut to... Twilight finally hitting on the solution of the riddle. She races off, tearing through a suddenly silent castle, and arrives at the hallway containing the Stained Glass Windows of Heroism and the vault the Elements of Harmony were hidden in.
And just as she enters she pulls to a halt, seeing Discord waiting in there with a big smile on his face and a four-word declaration: "Too late. I win!"
TO BE CONTINUED
[Cue cheery theme song]
Given the size of this "summary" and how much detail I wanted to include I figured better split this up. Part 2 shall be coming shortly.
This ends with a tone delightfully like the season 2 finale.
Ooh, this sounds good.