When you opened your eyes, you could only see murky darkness and the ruins of the platforms you once stood on. When you looked down, you were slightly floating above a dusty ground, and looking up were the lights of the Colosseum breaching an otherwise obscure and wavy vision. You also noticed you seemed rather weightless.
Indeed, when you noticed bubbles going upwards, your eyes widened when you realized you were underwater and lacked breath. Immediately you grabbed at your neck as you held on for the last of your life. And worst yet, your ear was ringing a familiar tone through all of this. As you felt your life fade, you realized that if Discord heard you dying, he may realize what’s going on and come save you. So you weakly bring your hoof to your ear, and utter “D-Discord…”
“Ahh! Anon!” You hear Discord in usual joyous form. “I wanted to call you to let you know that we still had these codec things. I feel rather foolish, actually.”
You just groan and whimper “D-Discord, h-help…”
“Yes, that’s exactly it, Anon. ‘Help’. Do you realize you could have called me right when the whole Storm King thing started? I could have cleared up that whole mess in two seconds. Isn’t that funny? Everything could have been avoided with a single little call. I can tell you, I’m still having a chuckle over it.” Discord says as he has a little giggle.
Your eyes twitched with anger when you realized he didn’t give a damn. You just shook and started screaming at him with every fiber of your being. “DISCORD! YOU FUCK! I’M HERE DROWNING AND YOU’RE JUST NOW TELLING ME THIS?! YOU SHIT! I’LL KILL YOU!”
“Well now…” Discord said in an insulted tone “And here I thought you’d find that funny. But I forget how delusional you can be.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” You screeched.
“Well, if you were drowning, then how am I hearing you so clearly? Plus, you’ve been underwater for over a minute and a half now, not exactly something I’d expect you to be able to do.”
“Wha?” You dared to take breath, and found you were able to take in the water as if it was oxygen, or something like that. “How am I breathing underwater? Could ponies always do that?”
“No. No they can’t. But with my special safety gear I gave you this morning, you are able to survive anything lethal, such as drowning. Pretty nifty, hmm? I figured you’d complain if I gave you something that’d protect you from anything, given this exam, but I still decided to plan for the worst, just in case.” Discord explains.
So, is that why no one came to save you? “I see, you just wanted to make sure I passed the exam legitimately while still protecting me and Scootaloo. I guess that’s fine, especially-... Wait. Is that why we weren’t being rescued?! Did you cause the platforms to fall?! Holy shit, Discord. That’s amazing! I bet the crowd were glued to their seats over that one.” But Discord doesn’t speak when you say that, it suddenly made you rather uncomfortable. “Discord?” You say, feeling a chill up your spine.
“...Well, Anon, about that. One, Scootaloo had none of my protection, but she’s safe, you threw her hard enough that she flew all the way passed the platform's edge.” Discord said in a meek tone.
“WHAT?!” You bellowed “ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HER!” You felt anger once again well up inside you, did Discord really risk her life? Knowing she could die? Why would he do all this?! “Why?! Tell me why!”
Discord takes a breath, and speaks in a more calm manner. Hearing your anger and your accusations, he calmed himself as to clearly explain that you were wrong. “I would if any of that was my doing or intention. I had nothing to do with the dragon statue exploding. A nice touch, but it caught me by surprise, as it did a few others. Namely the Wonderbolts, Mrs. Rich, and the Princesses. And, may I add, Twilight’s reaction was absolutely exquisite, though Celestia is rather sore at me right now, perhaps a little more than sore.”
He didn’t do it? Then that green glow... Could it be? No, that’s impossible. The most likely explanation was that whatever magical force that was operating the statue overloaded. That was probably the source of the metal crunching noises and the slow rotation of the statue. Also, he didn’t mention Diamond, nor did he explain why Celestia is upset at him. Hell, that really doesn’t explain why nobody came to save you or Scootaloo in the first place. “Why? Why would she be mad at you if you didn’t do anything wrong? Mmnnn… Discord, is Diamond ok? Does she know what actually happened?”
“No, but her and the rest of the crowd are getting rather antsy with you being underwater for so long, not to mention that Mrs. Rich is doing her darndest to explain to her peers that it’s all part of the exam. Oh, speaking of, you do have two minutes left to clear it before failure. All in all, still very doable even with your current predicament. As to why Celestia is angry at me, well, that has more to do with your question as to why nopony came to save you.”
Wut? “What do you mean by that?”
“Well…” Discord stopped for a moment “You weren’t wrong when you said they were glued to their seats. Especially in the literal sense.”
Your eyes bug out from anger once again “YOU GLUED THEM TO THEIR SEATS?! WHAT THE FUCK?! DISCORD! SCOOTALOO COULD HAVE BEEN HURT! OR WORSE! WHAT IF I DIDN’T THROW HER GOOD ENOUGH? HUH?! CELESTIA HAS EVERY RIGHT TO BE MAD AT YOU. WHAT THE HELL, MAN?! THOSE FLAMES WERE FUCKING REAL!”
Discord again takes another calming breath. “I’m aware, and as I said, your toss was good enough for our young pegasus friend to dip into the moat and swim to safety. I also happen to know how important this whole thing is to our dear future relatives. Indeed, this extra bit of chaos will do wonders for everypony involved once you finish this exam. Speaking of which, Anon, you need to make a choice at this moment. Either stay there and complain at me, or come up and reap the rewards of victory. It’s your choice. I did what I felt was right, and protected you and what you were striving for. And you, being the hero colt, chose Scootaloo over your own life, and rescued her from the inferno. It’s almost like one of those old plays from the younger days of Equestria, the kind where heroism and sacrifice wins the day in the end. The choice is yours Anon. If you want to talk more about it, then wait until tonight when you return home. As for me, I’m going to take in a bit more of Twilight’s reactions. See you soon, Anon.” And with that, Discord closed the line.
You took a moment to process this new information. Should you be mad at him? He clearly didn’t foresee things going wrong this hard, and most likely had everyone glued before it happened. Hell, it seemed he had everything pre-planned when it came to your guaranteed survival. What? Did he think you were going to break your skull or something? And what about Mr. Rich? He didn’t mention his name, so perhaps he also bought into his wife’s lies. And then there was Celestia. Luna had mentioned that she foresaw something bad happening during the exam. But given her anger at Discord, even she couldn’t guess it was going to be this bad. And then there was the exam itself. Once you came back up, your rep was going to shoot through the roof when everyone witnesses you being able to survive the platforms collapsing into the moat. Sure, Discord’s magic saved you this time, but you still put in the work and effort to even get this far. You wondered what this would mean for you. No doubt Snips and Snails would be annoying to the max again, and maybe you’d be able to get the attention of celebrities in to which you could wow Diamond by having her meet them. Otherwise, like anything else in this world, this shit should calm down for you in about a week or two.
Speaking of victory, you noticed the Diamond Doll floating upwards passed you, some of it’s sewn in yarn pulled out, causing it’s fluff to slowly seep out as it floats upwards. You decide to deal with the circumstances of the situation as they come, and so you take the doll and swim upwards. If you were right, everyone capable of mounting a rescue would be unglued when you came back up with the doll. You swam up towards the edge of the moat, and crawled onto the grass as the crowd spotted you, pointed, and called out to your position, all of them silent. You get up and give yourself a small shake to take off some of the water in your mane and coat.
This was it. It was time. You look up at the crowd and hold up the doll without saying a word. In an instant, the crowd throws up their hooves in cheer as many stomp in place to celebrate your heralding victory. It made you feel a little stunned in all actuality. This was the first time you ever seen such a colossal display of applause for you, and it actually felt pretty damn great. You did another pose, and there was a cheer, and so you did another pose, and there was applause all around. Goddamn, that felt pretty good after nearly dying.
“Anon!” You hear the cry of a familiar young pegasus call out to you from your side. Before you even have a chance to react, she jumps onto you, crying and hugging you tightly. “Anon! Anon! You’re ok! Oh my gosh! I-I thought… Anon…” She started to sob as she nuzzled onto you “I thought you were gone… I saw the whole thing coming down and just… froze. I meant to get help… I really did… But I just got so scared… I just…” She couldn’t speak anymore, and just started crying uncontrollably.
Poor Scootaloo, you couldn’t imagine how scared she felt for you right now. You slowly turned yourself so you could embrace her in a hug and gently pat at her head “Hey, Scoots. It’s ok, don’t even worry about it. Besides, we’re in front of a crowd, remember? We just passed the exam, so let’s just soak up the adoration, ok? I bet everypony is amazed at what we both did.”
“B-both? Anon… Nopony wants to… H-huh?” Scootaloo gets surprised when you break the embrace and stand once more, preparing to address the crowd.
“Hey everypony! That was amazing, right?! Right! You all came here to see me! The hero colt who saved all your butts from the Storm King pass a simple exam!” And that was something that at this point, you found a little weird. Maybe it was just you, but you couldn’t see humans gathering up in bunches to see something like this. To which you meant passing a simple exam, even if it turned into a diasaster. “And pass I did! But let me just say…” You grab onto Scootaloo's side, and hold her close “I couldn’t have done it without my friend, Scootaloo! When I screwed up my jump, she was there to catch me. When I had trouble climbing, she had my back! If I was feeling like giving up, she would give me the pep talk I needed to keep on going! So, come on everypony! Let me hear you cheer her name! SCOOT-A-LOO, SCOOT-A-LOO!”
And that did it, the crowd closest to you started to spread the word about what you said amongst the rest of the patrons. Soon after, they started chanting your name and Scootaloo’s name, over and over again. Scootaloo was stunned. Even with your speech, she didn’t expect anyone to actually cheer for her. “A-Anon, t-they’re cheering for me. L-Like I was a hero, like Rainbow Dash.”
You wrapped your hoof around Scootaloo's side and smirked as you gave her gentle shake “Scootaloo, thats exactly what’s going on. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to do this at all. And now everypony knows it! Including Rainbow Dash.” You guessed at that last one, but given she had to be watching, you felt it was true.
“Y-yeah…” Scootaloo said, her heart filled with accomplishment. She truly felt like a hero, and felt the incoming pride and happiness she’d feel when Rainbow Dash arrives to congratulate the two of you. She even gave a few waves to the crowd, and smiled when they cheered to it. "A-Anon, it's really true. We're heroes!"
As far as you were concerned, that was true for the both of you. "Heck yeah we are. And look! Here comes Rainbow Dash."
As you look up, you could see Rainbow Dash and Spitfire coming down to meet with the two of you as the crowd continued to cheer. But they also looked rather frantic and worried. Of course they did, considering what fucking happened. Hell, they were being rather pushy taking you back to the main lobby while they looked at the both of you for any injuries as you all walked. They both were really amazed, and you were sure they’d be more vocal about it once you all got inside.