She couldn't lie to herself, there was a bit of a shock when Discord managed to apparate himself into her labyrinth, she had thought that no one would notice her arrival as they did, all that had occurred wasn't part of her plans. The sighting of her clara dolls, the orb in the center of their little town and of course, the frightening of the civilians. She was still under the delusion that she could fix all of this, but with her demon form consuming her more every second, her intent to fix all these things she had broken in their world and live quietly in peace would soon develop into an invasion - just the teasing thought was enough to bring a crocked Grinch like smile to her face.
Homura didn't know what to do yet, was Discord someone she could trust, it was just in her nature to plot for the worst, no matter what she did there will always be someone fighting against her. She waited for Discord to come around, when he revealed himself she couldn't help but think that for a rather old gentleman he was on the handsome side, although that might of been because of the overpowering amount of dark magic that came off of him.
"I think it's only fair that you introduced yourself first, as it stands it was you who came into my house after all." She said. She didn't bother with shaking his hand. "And of course, explaining why you are here."
Discord pulled his hand back and polished his reformed nails against his chest. He laughed under his breath and cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, first of all I would like to say that you of all -” he eyes the woman up and down before choosing a term “creatures,” he emphasized. “Should be the last to questions my presence, let’s not forget that you’re the one invading here.” Discord vanished and re appeared above her, with the other half of his body stuck in a black hole that had a faint glow on the outside as he forced the tear in reality to keep itself from closing.
“However, since I have taken the responsibility of welcoming our new guests.” He brought a mirror to her face, “-you. I can do nothing but be polite. Oh, and no worries,” Discord started. He vanished and reappeared in front of her with a white leather couch for two and a glass table with a tea set and platter of cucumber sandwiches and biscuits. “Allow me to provide the tea.” There was a disturbed looked on the Homura’s face, or possibly annoyance; either way, Discord couldn’t help but smile - this was after all, what he was born to do. And as time continued on, he realized that his body had changed for the sake of maximum power - magic was changing, and more power meant more chaos for Discord to cause, to some degree.
“Would you like one or two sugars?” he teased, as had the two cubes circling around the rim of the china.
She waved her hand away and the china vanished. Discord tried to keep his face from moving into a sour expression.
“I was sleeping on my ceiling, I had the nicest dream about the glory days when the roads were made of soup and the clouds rained chocolate milk and bits of cotton candy fluff. But you see, when I woke up, it turned out that rather than being the predatory, I was the victim. At first I didn’t sense much of the new magical presence of your labyrinth here popping into Equestria because I myself live in a different realm that has much more dark magic rather than your good old boring balanced magic and harmony nonsense. However the new form got me a little spooked (this is the only time I will admit such a thing) so I brought my way to Fluttershy’s cottage, as you might have seen, and that’s when the presence of your Labyrinth really shook me and well . . . well, you know the rest.” Discord chuckled.
“I fail to see how this has brought you to the decision of coming here.”
“Well,” Discord continued, “Your question is the same as mine darling, why are you here?” He asked and came closer to her with each word.
Discord made the table and tea vanish and floated in front of her on his back. “You see, at my side are six very powerful ponies - one of which whom is both compulsive and (as much as I hate to admit) excellent in magic. So consider this a warning. Sooner or later, it doesn’t matter.” He started to say. Discord vanished into thin air and continuously re appeared in different areas around her. “There will come the time that the six will find you and bring your schemes to an end. But because of my soft spot for those who want a little bit of fun, I thought that I would warn you. Clearly you have quite a few number to support you so I know it won’t be easy, but I suggest you leave sooner than later or else a war between us will release.”
"My presences will start a war?" Homura mocked. "Well that's unfortunate, and I assure you I will do everything in my power to prevent this from happening, I am here as refuge, to find peace."
"You mean to reform? Well as one who has recently reformed (ish) I will tell you now that creating pods of dark magic throughout Equestria and causing ponies to lose their homes is not a good impression."
"I will fix all of it." Homura insisted.
"Well to convince me, how about we start with introductions? My name is Discord."
Homura was against sharing her name, if he was able to apparate into her realm and detect her magic, she didn't know what he could do with a her name - nevertheless, she gave it to him anyway.
"My name is Homura," she said. She knew that it would be her last chance to make some sort of impression that would change her chances of success with her plan. She knew that she would have to choose her words carefully, as a creature of chaos there was no doubt that he would be able to pick up on any false words - so she spoke as carefully as possible, and tried to look him in the eye as she avoided topics about her past. "I would like to assure you that my intent is not war, and I do want to fix any misconceptions. If that means that I have to see to your civilians each have their homes restored and give gifts for their troubles then I will do so, in hopes that we can all live in peace."
Of course, Homura's choice of words still ran some alarms in Discord's ear, she was still [planning on staying, and to some degree take the responsibilities of their current rulers to keep this peace. Although Homura might not have known it yet, but Homura was invading Equestria, now the question was, was Discord going to share this information or keep it for himself? He couldn't' help but feel a rush from knowing something before the mane six, like old times, he had the upper hand.
“Hmm,” Discord started and stroked the hair on his chin, “I see,” he said. A door appeared behind him, one that didn’t fit with the rest of their surroundings in the heart of the Labyrinth. “Well I guess I’ll see you later then,” he proceeded to walk out the door, but quickly peaked his head through the door again before shutting. “Remember, next time it’s your turn to supply the tea.” Discord waved his hand through the crack of the door that was shutting on its own and sang out his last words, “Chow!”
Although he only needed to be in between the tear of reality for a second, there was a lot that managed to pass through his mind - what in the Celestia was this thing doing here, what was she planning? Discord could feel his curiosity overriding his newfound morals, friendship was one magic, but chaos has recently jumped a few leagues.
When he opened the second door to pass through, Discord was back in the castle where the Mane six were still brainstorming. They all turned to look at him, it took them a few moments to remind themselves of his knew form, it was only Twilight who was unchanged by this, as she had gone to another realm where she was surrounded by humans and had become one herself.
“Where have you been?” Twilight asked with a raised brow; as one of the four princesses, she had to investigate every possibility even if that meant suspecting recently reformed allies, especially the ones who have betrayed them before during their “truce”. The rest of the six nodded in agreement, they wanted to know the answer just as badly.
It was Discord’s last chance to come to his decision, was he going to chance it or make the proper decision?
He stuck his index finger up as if her were going to lecture them. “First of all, I would like to express the pain I feel from the tone of suspicion that you feel towards me. And I would also like to expression my pride over your wrongfulness.”
“Discord!” all except Fluttershy shouted out unanimously.
“I went out of my way to investigate and see if I could find anything.” Discord went up to Twilight. “You aren’t the only one who knows a few magic tricks.”
“Well,” Rainbow whaled and flew in Discords face. “Did you find anything?”
“I did,” Discord pushed Rainbow away from him. “I believe you people call it.” glasses appeared on his face and a dictionary in his hand with pages that flew from both sides and vanished in the middle, “nothing,” he ended. “That book is your best bet.”
“Alright girls, well it is up to us to figure this out and protect Equestria. We haven’t lost any battles yet with as long if we have -”
“Yes, yes the magic of friendship.” Discord dismissively waved his hand in the air as he crouched over the map, if they could only see the chaotic labyrinth that hovered over their beloved Equestria as he did. “Twilight darling, could I make a copy of this?” He snapped his finger and a humongous map on parchment appeared in his hand that exceed his arms length. On the parchment was Equestria, but what hovered over it, was a the physical form of that creature’s labyrinth. Even from a quick glimpse they could see that the map had more than just Equestria on it.
“What is that?” Twilight started, and Rainbow came up behind him to look at the map, but he rolled the map up and folded it into a small square and placed it in his pocket. “Ah, ah, it’s rude to snoop,” he sang out and vanished - leaving the main six alone to ponder over what he was up to, In Discord’s mind, no matter what side he chose, the ponies will end up suspecting him for the darkness that would eventually start affecting them, so why not get ahead of the game?
As Discord vanished, Rainbow Dash's coat had darkened for a moment, and her eyes had gone black, much like the orb in the town square. She fluttered down to the ground with her hoof on her head. The other five and Spike surrounded her with concern.
“Rainbow, are you alright?” Applejack started.
“Well that was was a nasty thing to do, even for Discord’s standards.” Rarity spoke in disgruntled disgust.
“You guys!” Rainbow exclaimed and waved them off of her so that she could breath in fresh air. “I’m fine, but whatever was on Discord’s map, wasn’t Equestria.” There was a faint disturbance in the tone of her voice, which was alarming to the rest.
“What do you think it was?” Twilight asked after the brief moment of silence that followed after Rainbow’s statement.
“I don’t know, it was just dark and chaotic, I think it was a map of Discord’s realm.” Rainbow said.
“Well why’n the hoot would Discord need a map of his own realm?” Applejack asked.
“Maybe he wants to start letting more people visit?” Fluttershy suggested. “Remember, he’s reformed now and I don’t think he would betray us again.”
“Well, he knows something and isn’t telling us which is the first step of betrayal, we should warn Princess Celestia and Luna!” Spike exclaimed.
“No one is warning anyone about anything.” Twilight took her hoof to her chest and took a deep breath. “We are going to calm down and think about this, Discord said that we’re on the right track with Chrysalis’ journal, so let’s study that and see if we can find anything, and then we should go out and see if anything new has shown up.
“Or we can do this whole study session fiasco later Twilight. Look at the map, we have a black wall around us, Luna said it herself, nature is moving without command and ever pony in canterlot has lost their home because we can’t stand on them anymore - oh my gosh, Tank!” Rainbow screamed and Dashed out the window.
“I do have to agree with Rainbow Dash Darling, we should investigate and see that everyone is okay before we take a back seat for a while and create theories. There is a horrid wall surround Equestria after all, that color alone is dreadful.”
“Girls, we need to stick together!” Twilight exclaimed, only now starting to panic.
“I think it’s best if we split up, you stay here, if we need you we will come and get you, but stay here and study the book with spike, and we’ll go help the ponies and fight off anymore of those creepy doll things.” Applejack said with a shiver in her voice when she mentioned the dolls.
Twilight froze as she watched they rest of them leave, Applejack pulled Fluttershy by the tale as she begged to stay in the castle with Twilight, and Rarity trotted off behind the two of them. It wasn’t until Rarity shut the door that Twilight snapped back into reality, the scroll and book still in her hand.
“Oh dear.”