//------------------------------//
// Rainbow in the Dark 
// Story: Oddball 
// by Crescent Pulsar 
//------------------------------//

While Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy headed to the former's house with Oddball, and the others went their own way, Rainbow Dash took to the sky and began to scope out the town for any sign of Discord.

When she saw a literal sign a few minutes in, absolutely enormous in size and as flashy as a rainboom, pointing to a slab of stone with Discord's talon and paw prints within a star, she couldn't help groaning at what that meant. Still, despite his awareness of her activity and whatever he planned to do about it, she set her jaw and continued her search.

She was in the middle of her fourth sweep of the town when she noticed it, perhaps after overlooking it one or more times. It was a modest, two-story, beige-colored house, of a style she'd never seen before, yet it gave the strong impression of being super ordinary even though it was the only one of its kind in Ponyville. The yard was perfectly flat and green, enclosed by a white picket fence, which was only broken by a stone pathway that connected the fence's gate to the front door. The completely straight and sharp-edged dimensions of the place was probably a mathematician's dream, but the sight unsettled her greatly.

Narrowing her eyes, she dove toward the front door, since the drawn curtains wouldn't afford her a look through any of the windows. However, long before she got there, she slammed into an invisible barrier that sounded like a thick pane of glass, which would have shattered had that been the case. Oddly enough, despite how hard she had flown into a barrier that had no give to it, the expected pain hadn't accompanied it at all.

Her brow furrowed in equal parts pique and confusion, she backed away and reached out to see if the barrier would be persistent, which turned out to be the case. At her touch, a two-dimensional image of Discord appeared on its surface, only shown above the elbow, his expression and pose one of disapproval. Below his image was a blue text box surrounded by a white border, and on it a message began to appear one white character at a time, accompanied by some electronic sound effect that sounded like something she'd once heard in an arcade, which read, "What are you, some kind of Neighanderthal? Use the gate!"

She glared at the message before complying, muttering under her breath along the way. When she landed in front of the gate, another white-bordered text box appeared on the barrier, this one asking what her reason for visiting was. However, much to her annoyance, every option provided on the list of responses was the same one: "browbeat Discord." She wasn't familiar enough with the word to know what it meant, but she was already contemplating introducing a hoof to some part of Discord's face, if that's what it was implying.

"Come on!" Came her indignant response. "Just let me through!"

The text box disappeared, replaced by yet another one. This time there was a title above it, reading, "Guest Agreement," and below were buttons that gave the option to accept or decline. As for the content within the text box itself, it began with "Terms and Conditions" and seemed to continue beyond what the text box's size could show.

"...What the heck is this?" She said, becoming more irritated.

While she was pretty sure that it wouldn't be a good idea to press the "accept" button, she did it anyway because: one, if Discord was truly reformed, there shouldn't be any real reason to be concerned; two, if he wasn't reformed, they could get straight to the business of kicking his flank and sealing him away again. The fact that she had next to no patience for his games was just a coincidence.

Instead of being allowed to approach the front door, however, another text box popped up, this one reading, "Please read the Terms and Conditions if you wish to proceed."

Her brow developed a tick and she deadpanned, "How about: no."

With that decided, she hopped into the air, swiftly did a one-eighty spin while rearing her back legs, then bucked as her front hooves hit the ground. Her back hooves felt a fleeting bit of resistance as they cleared the barrier, and she heard the satisfying sound of breaking glass at the same time. Without wasting any time, she about-faced and dashed toward the gate.

"Ha!" She crowed, as she jumped over it. "As if you can—"

The sight that greeted her on the other side of the fence was enough of a surprise to make her stumble when she landed, but she was able to recover from it. With wide eyes, she gazed at her surroundings, which were completely different from what she had seen before. The flat ground was anything but, with many mounds and pits, and the green grass showed up in patches and were rarely green — even the dirt looked odd in most cases. Then there was the stone path, which had become one of those spring snakes that you prank someone with, except it was flat and wound aimlessly into the air from the ground.

Lastly, there was the house, although she doubted that was an appropriate term for it now. Instead of the "normal" abode from before, it was more of a tower that branched out in several directions, often in defiance of the laws of physics as well as practicality. There were several floating land masses around it also, some of which were loosely connected by some odd thing or another. The top section didn't even appear to be habitable, since it looked a lot like a lava lamp, what with there being several large blobs of... something leisurely drifting up and down within a seemingly-defined space.

Looking over her shoulder and toward the fence, at where she had come from, she saw the edge of the floating island that she now found herself on instead of Ponyville, and beyond that was the same "sky" that she saw everywhere else. She didn't know what it was, but it was primarily black, a couple shades of purple, and pale, light blue, and she swore that she could make out recognizable shapes among the chaos of colors if she stared long enough.

Swallowing her fear, she focused her attention on the zigzag-shaped front door and approached it. She raised a hoof to knock upon it with excessive force, but it suddenly swung open before she could. Standing in the doorway was her query, only he was dressed up as a frumpy old woman, which included makeup and a short, curly wig. Before she could fully react to the sight, he leaned down and planted a wet kiss on her forehead with an accompanying, "Mwuh," sound.

"Ugh!" She immediately voiced her disgust, before stepping back and furiously rubbing her forehead with a foreleg while she kept her eyes trained on the one who had offended her. "So gross! No way you're reformed!"

"How so?" Came Discord's seemingly-innocent reply, as he gripped the top of his wig and somehow managed to pull his entire outfit off, which he casually tossed over his shoulder. "I thought it was normal for neighbors to borrow sugar."

"That wasn't normal and you know it!" Rainbow Dash angrily retorted.

Discord cocked an eyebrow. "And it's normal to barge onto someone's property with ill intent?"

Rainbow Dash regarded him as if he'd said something ridiculous. "You can't expect us to just trust you, after what you did." She jabbed a hoof at him accusingly. "And here you are, hiding away in some freaky, nightmarish place!"

Gasping and pressing his paw against his chest, like he'd been scandalized, Discord replied, "I'll grant you your first point, but to think you'd sink so low as to insult my tastes in location, landscaping and architecture — which are quite refined, I'll have you know."

"Uh-huh," Rainbow Dash flatly replied, not buying it.

Discord crossed his arms and became serious. "At any rate, there's nothing I can say that will convince you that I'm reformed, or what my intentions really are, so you're wasting your time." Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to respond, but he preempted her and said, "Yes, yes: you're going to keep your eyes on me, and if I pick my friend's nose wrong I'll become a stiff before I can say any last words."

Put out by his assertion, however accurate it was, Rainbow Dash glared at him for a moment before saying, "Whatever," and turning around to leave, feigning nonchalance as she headed toward the exit that he could probably close off to her if he so desired. Much to her relief, however, she was able to jump over the gate and re-enter the normal world, where she took to the air and flew toward Twilight Sparkle's place, so she could report what she had learned.

Back in his pocket dimension, Discord had been unnaturally still and silent since she had disappeared from his sight, but he finally let loose his laughter, which began as long, loud guffaws. He eventually had to lean against the doorjamb while he hugged himself, as the gales of laughter continued, inspired by his memory of Rainbow Dash's tough behavior and sharp looks, and what he imagined would happen when one of her friends saw her...

...With bright, red lipstick smeared across the top half of her face.