//------------------------------// // θ // Story: The Tragic Story of Twilight Sparkle, or Twilight // by A Fistful of Apples //------------------------------// θ Discord Twilight set out a few more golden pins into the floor, carefully checking them to make sure they were in exactly the right spot. This was difficult work, and a single millimetre out of place could spell failure. She'd been working on it for weeks. It was a fairly large personal project, one that required the space of an entire room. Said room previously was used for extra storage, but Twilight managed to squeeze everything into the basement. Instead of flasks, metals, tools, and scientific instruments, the room was now covered in cinnabar paint, pins, spikes, and needles of various thickness, lengths and materials, and structures of similarly odd construction. It took a lot of work to change a pony's body. Not just knowing how to do it, but getting the energy without killing one's self. Somepony like Princess Celestia or possibly Luna could do this, assuming they knew how, without trouble at all, but Twilight was just a normal pony and even her large stamina could not hope to accomplish the task of giving Applejack permanent wings without a significant amount of work to use energy from outside herself. As she adjusted a bowl of water on the floor, Spike stormed in. Twilight's head shot up as he ran over the floor, trampling over bits of her hard work. He knew he wasn't supposed to come in like that, and Twilight felt she'd have to do something to punish him. "Twilight, we've got some kind of emergency!" he said, which stalled her thoughts of punishment for a moment.  "Ponyville needs your help!" "This better be important Spike," said Twilight. "What emergency is going on?" "Come outside! Everything's wrong! Please hurry!" Twilight groaned but otherwise didn't say anything as she followed Spike down the stairs. There were no windows in her house, so it wasn't until Spike opened the door that she saw what was going on. Spike was right. It was an emergency. The clouds were pink, and something brown was falling instead of normal rain. "It's raining chocolate milk," said Spike. "Mephistopheles," asked Twilight, worried. "What's going on?" "Specifically?" "What's causing the weather to behave this way? It's not normal." "A draconequus named Discord has recently escaped his imprisonment in stone and is using his magic to change the normal flow of things." "Why would he do that?" "He thinks it's fun. He finds the unnatural interesting." "Well it's not interesting. How do I stop him?" "There are many ways. The easiest way would be to gather up your friends and use the elements of harmony as you did Nightmare Moon." "And Princess Celestia has the elements," said Twilight knowingly. "Not anymore." Twilight quirked an eyebrow. She was completely oblivious to Spike staring at her oddly, as from his perspective she was simply standing in place doing nothing, and had been doing so for an abnormally long time.  "Where are they then?" she asked. "Discord took them and hid them in the book, The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide, in the Ponyville Library." "Then this shouldn't be such a big deal. Once we all get together and get the elements, how do we find Discord?" "He's currently messing about in the Canterlot Castle Garden." Twilight nodded. "Spike, go find Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy and bring them to the library. I'll meet you there."  "Will that fix this problem?" asked Spike. "Yes. Just hurry." It'd been a while since Twilight and her friends had to go up against anything major, and she wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. Before Mephistopheles had shown up, this might be difficult or worth worrying about. Now it was just annoying. Twilight had better things to do with her time than worry about some crazy draconequus. Twilight ran to the Library, the chocolate milk rain making her coat uncomfortably sticky as ponies around Ponyville panicking at what looked like cotton candy clouds zooming through the air and malformed forest animals running amuck. Twilight tried her best to ignore it all. Entering the library and slamming the door behind her, Twilight quickly made her way to the shelf where she thought the book was. Then she thought of a better way. "Where's the book?" she asked Mephistopheles. Silently he pointed directly at it, and Twilight grabbed it with her magic. Opening it up she saw that what Mephistopheles had said was true. It was hollowed out, and inside there were the Elements of Harmony. "Now we just wait for Spike to show up with everyone else," said Twilight aloud. It didn't take much longer before there was a knock, followed by the door opening forcefully and five ponies and a dragon running in. They were all soaked with Chocolate Milk, and Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie had bits of popcorn stuck in their manes. "Spike said you had a plan to stop all this," said Rarity, breathing hard. They must have been running a lot. "I hope whatever it is it keeps the chocolate rain," said Pinkie. "It's delicious!" She started licking at her own hooves and Twilight couldn't help but cringe at the sight. "Riiiight," said Twilight. Her eyes focused and she cleared her throat to help get her friend's attention. "I have found out that the crazy weather outside is due to a Draconequuis named Discord. To defeat him, we must use the elements of Harmony again, which I have right here." She levitated the five necklaces over to her friends, who all took over for her and put them on themselves with their magic. It was kind of odd for those who had to wear their artificial unicorn horns, having their elements dangle unceremoniously over their already occupied neck, but it wouldn't make the Elements not work, so it didn't really matter. Just then, Spike went through his typical motions of receiving a letter from Princess Celestia, his stomach expanding and him making throaty gurgling noises before the scroll appeared in a bit of expelled flame. It'd been a while since Twilight had seen that happen. The Princess usually communicated with Twilight exclusively on the  Xiscribers now. Twilight plucked it off the ground and began to read. A quick read-through showed that the Princess wanted to see her and her friends immediately. "Is this about Discord?" Twilight asked Mephistopheles. The spirit nodded. Twilight let the parchment roll back and put it away on one of the bookshelves. "Anyway girls, we've got to find this Discord and stop him with the Elements of Harmony. He's at the castle garden, so we've got to get to Canterlot as quickly as possible!" She didn't let them so much as move an inch before she continued speaking. "I want everyone to gather around me. Get very close. I'm going to teleport us all there." "Can you really do that Twilight?" asked Rarity. "Yes, it'll just take a bit of concentrating, but I know I can." Rarity shrugged, and her friends gave each other uncertain looks, but they did as she said. Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated. This was a very long distance, and there were five ponies to teleport who weren't her. It would take a lot of work to teleport all six of them all the way to Canterlot. The physics of it were easy now, Twilight now had a lot of practice with magic as it was. It was simply the time it took to concentrate, and the toll it'd take on her body. With a sudden flash, she felt herself teleport. Opening her eyes, she found herself right in the middle of the castle gardens, all five of her friends around her, dazed and confused. Twilight looked around. No sign of a problematic Draconequus here. "Where is he?" asked Twilight silently. "He's here," replied Mephistopheles. "He's mildly surprised that you've come so soon. He's waiting to see what you do before making himself visible." Twilight wasn't in the mood for games. She'd had her very important work interrupted and she was eager to get back to it. "Discord!" shouted Twilight. "I know you're here! Stop fooling around and show yourself!" It didn't take long before the ground under Twilight's hooves began to rumble. Somehow, the sky grew dark, and clouds began to move above them. Twilight rolled her eyes, while her friends began to huddle close together in worry. A few lightning strikes and thunderclaps later, and Discord himself finally showed up, laughing like he was playing some sort of game. Twilight just found the overblown entrance to be annoying and not at all menacing. "Hello little ponies!" said Discord, looking down at the stunned faces of everyone but Twilight. Twilight snorted in defiance. "I must say I'm a bit surprised at your punctuality. Why, if only Princess Celestia was so punctual for our -" "Girls, now!" shouted Twilight. Luckily her five friends weren't so shocked by the appearance of Discord that they didn't hear Twilight, as Twilight and her friends found themselves in that familiar magical flow of the Elements of Harmony. "Wait, what's this?" asked Discord. He was genuinely curious, but Twilight and her friends couldn't see him. As soon as the rainbow formed out from their magic however, he understood. "This can't be happening!" he shouted as he was engulfed in multicoloured magic. "I hid them, there wasn't enough time, this is imposs -" His ranting was cut off as he turned to stone. A bright light shone from where the six friends were, visible all the way up to where Princess Celestia stood, still waiting for her faithful student and her friends to appear. She walked over to the window, wondering what was happening and was shocked to see the weather no longer in chaos. At least as far as she could see everything was back to normal, but that didn't mean Discord was gone. Perhaps he had simply chosen to move his chaos somewhere else? Back down in the garden, Twilight and her friends now stood slightly dazed, the evil Discord in front of them, now turned to stone. "Well uh... that was easy," said Rainbow Dash. "Normally when we have to do something like this it takes forever!" "We were prepared this time," said Twilight. She looked around and saw that everything was back to normal, and quick confirmation with Mephistopheles proved that everything was normal everywhere, and her job was done. Now all she had to do was meet with the Princess and then she could get back to what really mattered. "Hey girls, I've got to go see the Princess," said Twilight. "Do you think you could get back to Ponyville without me, now that the trouble's gone?" "Well sure," said Applejack. "Ponyville's just a quick trip away, no problem at all!" The rest of her friends nodded in agreement. Twilight assumed they all had money to pay for a trip back, or they would have mentioned it. Nodding to them, she closed her eyes, quickly asked Mephistopheles where in the castle the Princess was, and teleported there. When Twilight opened her eyes she found herself staring right into the shocked face of Princess Celestia. She bowed quickly, hoping to get this over with as soon as possible. "Twilight!" said the Princess. "Where are your friends? The situation is urgent and requires all of you!" "The situation has been taken care of," said Twilight. "My friends and I gathered up the elements, found Discord, and defeated him." Princess Celestia had a look on her face that Twilight had never seen before. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, and her mouth hung slightly open. She had the kind of look Ditzy Doo got when she lost her train of thought and was trying to remember what she was saying. "Well... uh... wait," said the Princess finally. "How did you know about Discord?" Twilight thought fast. Inwardly she asked, "Is Discord in any history books? Is it possible to find out about him that way?" "Yes." "I knew about him from history books," said Twilight out loud. "How did you get the Elements of Harmony? They were behind a spell only I could break!" Twilight figured the truth would work just fine here. "Discord stole them and hid them in the Ponyville Library. I happened to find them there." "And how did you find and defeat Discord?" "Discord came to taunt me personally shortly after I found the elements, and told me where he'd be. He didn't know I had already found the elements, or that I even knew he had taken them. So he was taken by surprise when my friends and I showed up." Twilight was surprised how easily the lie came. A part of her was even more surprised that she was wilfully lying to the Princess of all ponies. She would never had thought to do that before. But of course, she didn't have a huge secret to protect before either. "And just like that?" said Celestia. "You showed up, defeated him, and that's it?" "Um... yes?" said Twilight. "Is there anything else?" The Princess didn't look happy. She didn't look pleased. But she didn't look angry either. Twilight couldn't tell at all what she was thinking. So she asked Mephistopheles about it. "She doesn't believe your explanations, but isn't inclined to interrogate you on the matter since you got the job done. She feels she can no longer trust you about everything. There is also a hint of fear." "She's afraid of me?" asked Twilight. "Why?" "She feels you've taken what should have been a difficult job and finished it far too easily. She isn't aware how you did it. She also knows you've done a lot of things recently which should have been difficult, but for you they weren't. She doesn't know what to think about it, other than it's making you powerful, possibly too powerful. She thinks if you were almost anypony else she would have demanded to know how you were doing it and not taken no for an answer. But she doesn't want to do that to you and she's starting to think she couldn't even if she wanted to." "Huh," said Twilight. "Well I love the Princess, I'm not going to harm her or cause any danger to her or Equestria." Mephistopheles didn't reply to that. A few more moments passed in silence between the Princess and her student. Finally the Princess spoke. "I suppose that's it then," she said. Twilight bowed, and closed her eyes and teleported back home. Celestia watched her student teleport back... probably all the way back to Ponyville. Celestia was at a complete loss of what to do now. She was sure Twilight was lying to her... but why would Twilight lie? And if she was lying, how did she really defeat Discord so easily? She would have to talk to Luna later. Twilight could no longer be given such a free reign over everything, or who knows what would happen? She briefly thought about going to Ponyville and speaking with Twilight's friends directly, but if Twilight found out it might seem highly distrustful and... for some reason, Celestia didn't think she wanted to be on Twilight's bad side. Instead, Celestia decided she'd spend the day making sure that Twilight and her friends indeed had defeated Discord, and finding a new, safer place to keep Discord imprisoned than in the middle of a garden. Back in Ponyville, Twilight asked Mephistopheles if her friends were making it back from Canterlot all right without her help. After his assurance that they were, she went back to her work.  She still had a fair amount of work left to do before she could give Applejack wings.