Wallflower had never seen a plant like this one before.
It looked like a cross between a common daisy and a vine, complete with prickly thorns that jabbed at her hand (no, claw?) while still having a strange fuzz around it that was slick with dewdrops. She cradled it carefully between two fingers (talons?) and felt a strange, pulsing sensation. Was this magic? The very thing that Sunset had told her so much about? Wallflower wasn’t certain, but she could venture a guess that this “magic” was likely responsible for her current form.
The forest around her was strange and exciting. It vaguely reminded her of the National Parks back in her home dimension, but with its own unique intricacies. It was beautiful nonetheless. How had Sunset never told her that something like this existed here?
As Wallflower straightened herself up (the best she could at any rate) she glanced around her. The library was somewhere in the distance behind her, but Wallflower frankly hadn’t done the greatest job of keeping track of which direction she had gone. “Great… Did you manage to get yourself lost again?” she muttered.
“You!”
Wallflower yelped as a booming voice thundered from behind her. “I didn’t park in the staff lot!” she blurted.
“Discord! Explain your presence!” commanded an unmistakable voice. The mare who shouted was tall, and had her wings spread open in a defensive stance.
“V-Vice Principal Luna? I–”
The horse version of Vice Principal Luna growled and took a step closer. Wallflower couldn’t help but stare at the strange cream-like substance that was rubbed across her forehead. “Explain.”
“Make this easy on yourself,” came another, more familiar voice from behind the winged horse.
Wallflower immediately relaxed. “Sunset, it’s me!”
“I can see that,” said an orange and red pony that had to have been Sunset. “But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“W-What? I came looking for you!”
A cyan pony that Wallflower assumed to be Rainbow darted in front of her, leveling her purple horn in Wallflower’s direction. “Well you’ll have to get through us to get her, buddy!”
“No! I don’t want to fight you!” Wallflower whimpered. “This… This is all just a misunderstanding, I swear.”
“Something’s wrong,” declared one of two identical looking purple horses. “Discord, why are you here?” she asked sincerely.
Wallflower groaned, trying to cover her face as if that would help matters. “I’m not Discord! I don’t even know what that is! Sunset, it’s me!”
Sunset gasped. “Wait… Wallflower?”
“Yes!” cried Wallflower, exasperated. “It’s me, Sunny!’
Luna narrowed her eyebrows. “Sunset, explain at once.”
“Wallflower, what are you doing here?”
“I… I got worried, so I followed you through the portal,” Wallflower said, tapping her talons together nervously.
“Why do you look like… that?” asked Rainbow, earning a swift smack from a white mare that was likely Rarity.
“I don’t know! I thought I was going to be a horse or something.”
The other Twilight frowned. “This isn’t good…”
“So does this mean that Discord in the human-universe-whatever is… Wallflower?” asked a mare in a hat that in all likelihood was Applejack.
“Um… I don’t really see the resemblance,” Fluttershy offered.
“She can’t be,” Sunset protested. “It just… It doesn’t make any sense!”
“And that, my dear creatures, is precisely the problem.”
Wallflower jumped as a low voice echoed around them. Where did all that fog come from?
The ponies in front of her all flinched, and Luna narrowed her eyes further. “Reveal thyself!”
A pair of glowing red eyes manifested above them.
“...Okay, I think that’s Discord.”
“Truly paradoxical, isn’t it? For a face to appear again. But not like a changeling, no, no, no. Tell me… What do you think gives you the right to bear that face?”
Wallflower yelped. “I didn’t ask for any of this!”
“It doesn’t matter what you asked for. What does matter is what you have set in motion. The universe is a carefully calibrated balance of things. My very presence is designed to upset that balance, but our dear Galactic Mother is a stubborn one. But with two of us… The balance changes.”
Around them, Wallflower suddenly noticed that the forest around them was… tearing? At the edges of her visions, the dirt and leaves seemed to vibrate slightly, their colors fading and blurring and changing rapidly. The sound of distant birds was becoming distorted, and varying in pitch.
“Something’s wrong,” one of the Twilights said urgently. “Discord, what’s going on?!”
“Imbalance,” Discord answered. “A world tearing itself apart at its seams. Reality collapsing on itself, over and over. It’s just a little bit of chaos, I hear you saying. What’s the problem with that? Even a little too much salt changes the flavor of your soup. A little too much madness will drive anyone insane.”
The eyes narrowed into a glare directed at Wallflower.
“And you. You are a little too much of anything, whether you ‘meant it’ or not. Tell me… Do you know what happens when a fever dreamer dies?”
The eyes widened, and suddenly swallowed the entire world whole.
“Sunset?”
Sunset felt like she was swimming in a pool of molasses. Her vision had gone completely red when the eyes opened up, and now she couldn’t see anything. “Twilight?”
“Sunset, over here!” someone shouted. Something or someone ran into her side, and she nearly fell over. She rubbed her eyes with a hoof and slowly, her vision began to return.
She saw that they were no longer in the forest… At least, not exactly. The world around them was a chaotic landscape of buildings, trees, hills, cobblestone, and a river all mashed together. Branches extended out of skyscraper windows. A cloud made up the roof of a nearby hut. A couple of confused squirrels darted besides an oversized cart.
“Where are we?”
“I… I don’t know,” Twilight answered. “But this is…”
A group of ponies darted past them. The first was dressed in some kind of formal gown while the second was wearing what looked like ancient battle armor. As Sunset continued to examine their surroundings, she saw more ponies, all wearing a variety of accessories.
A red-maned pegasus in a windbreaker and a ballcap with three letters printed on it pushed past her. “No!” she shouted into a small black box she was carrying. “This is a full-scale reality collapse. I repeat, a full-scale reality collapse! I need–”
“Look! Up there!”
Above them, against the blood-red sky, Sunset’s eyes widened as she saw two draconequus-esque forms lunging at one another above them. “Wallflower!”
“Steel thyself!” Luna grabbed Sunset from behind before she could run off. “We must form a plan!”
Behind her, the rest of the girls had assembled, worriedly staring up at the two battling forms above them. But a sinking feeling quickly formed in Sunset’s stomach when she realized what was wrong.
There were no horns nor wings to be seen on any of them.