"Lieutenant, you know where the Element Bearers are heading?!"
"Yes sir, Princess Celestia informed me they were on the way to the castle's hedge maze."
"That's the same area of the castle grounds where the statue garden is! Or was, considering the devastation of battling against Discord..."
"Sir, who's 'Discord'?"
"The being that been behind all this mess! Celestia sent the Element Bearers to stop him, and we need to help them! Follow me, full gallop!"
"Yes sir!"
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Acting Guard Captain Shining Armor and Lieutenant Steelwing galloped side-by-side on the path back toward the castle's statue gardens, hoping to catch up to the Element Bearers before they entered the maze and what they feared was Discord closing off any attempt at outside interference. Adding to the frustration was Discord having cut off previous contact with what was going on, causing critical delays in attempting to locate a pony that knew where the group of mares was going.
As the two Guard stallions passed through the statue garden, Shining Armor noticed in passing that the battle damage from his first fight with Discord seemed to have been repaired - the pedestal where Discord had been was still empty, but otherwise the garden looked undamaged. In retrospect, he should've recognized that this was a sign not everything was as it seemed, but at the moment was too focused on trying to get to the hedge maze to see it at the time.
Nearing the entrance of the maze, the sounds of Twilight's voice fill her older brother's ears, prompting the latter to skid to a stop in front of the entrance to listen more carefully. Steelwing narrowly avoids running headlong into his senior officer, also skidding to a stop near the entrance.
"What's going on, sir?" Steelwing asks, looking cautiously into the maze as he does so.
"Shhh! Listen!" Shining Armor answers, pricking ears up trying to catch as much of what he was hearing as he could.
Finally, the words of Twilight Sparkle ring out clearly: "Everypony head to the middle as fast as you can, and we'll regroup there!"
"You heard that, right Lieutenant? Twily and her friends are heading for the center of the maze, we should do the same!" Shining Armor exclaims, charging into the maze without any further delay.
"But sir, I didn't see any...!" Steelwing starts objecting, before scrambling to catch up to the Acting Captain charging into the maze. Shining disappears around a turn, and when Steelwing attempts to round the same turn he runs headlong into a hedge that suddenly rises in his path, blocking the way forward and isolating Shining Armor in the maze.
Steelwing naturally opens wings to try to get a higher view, but upon takeoff hits an invisible "ceiling" that knocks him back down to the ground! With all other horizontal means of movement blocked by hedges, Steelwing quickly flips around and heads back out, hoping to work his way around the edge of the maze and meet Shining Armor on the other side...
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"Twily! TWILY! Where are you?! Can you hear me?!?" Shining Armor shouts as he gallops through the maze - his efforts all in vain due to Discord's distortions of the maze as part of his game.
The Acting Captain only stops in his hoofsteps when he hears laughing. Perking ears to locate the source of the sound, he cautiously proceeds down a side path, and when he sees the path open up he peeks around a corner. He spots not Twilight, but Applejack looking down into a small pond!
"Odd, I don't remember there being water features in this..." Shining Armor begins to puzzle, only to be interrupted by Discord's appearance near Applejack!
The Guard unicorn growls, his horn activating with magenta-colored magic as he prepares to attack, but as soon as he fully steps into the open area to aim a charge the scene in front of him disappears! Instead, all that is left is the voices of Twilight and Applejack in conversation...
"Twily! TWILY! IF YOU CAN HEAR YOUR BIG BRO, GIVE A SHOUT!" the older brother naturally exclaims, answered not by the younger sister's voice but by mocking laughter coming from one of the side tunnels!
"Discord, what have you done with my sister and her friends?!?" Shining Armor shouts, the rage within him rising as he charges into the side tunnel, following its twists and turns deeper into the maze.
When the path ends, he finds himself dumped out in a small open area where he can see balloons rising in the distance, along with the voices of both Pinkie Pie and Discord in the same general direction. Believing that some answers would be found in that direction, he starts across the area, but to his alarm notices the hedges making up the maze shifting around, directing the path in a different direction that it originally did.
"I'm really getting tired of this trickery!" Shining Armor growls under his breath as he backs up in his hoofsteps, hoping that this would reset the original configuration of the maze. Instead, he slips directly into a mud puddle, and as he tries to wrestle his way back out the voices of Discord and Pinkie Pie respectively fill the air around him:
"What's the matter, Pinkie Pie? I thought you appreciated a good laugh?"
"It's different. They're laughing at me."
"It's hardly different. Your friends laugh at you all the time."
"My friends laugh with me, not at me."
"Oh, really?"
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After the last words Discord spoke, Shining hears the laughter of the other Element Bearers joining in the general laughing chorus, and he immediately realizes that the entire thing has been a setup. He looked around for any signs of Steelwing, but found none, concluding the junior pegasus had either been cut off or sent in a completely different direction due to Discord's control of the maze.
"I gotta figure a way out of here, somehow..." Shining growls out, shaking what mud he can off his coat and armor. The laughing and other sounds tail off, leaving Shining Armor with no reference point on where to go next. Instead, he grimly pushes on further into the maze, passing across the small open area and down where the path ahead would lead him...