The room collapsed into darkness once again, and the sound of hooves hitting the floor came from every direction. After a brief moment of that, the light returned and the Elements of Chaos, minus Church, were nowhere to be seen. What replaced said Elements, however, was a giant ball floating at the foot of the stairs to the throne, resting between Celestia and Luna. It instantly reminding Twilight of the memories inside Church's head, but more condensed.
"What is that?" Fluttershy asked, surprisingly being the first to drift towards it.
"That, my dear, is how we will watch their progress." Discord chuckled, drifting towards it while resting on a floating hammock. "At any given moment I can call up an image of whoever I want and we can see what they are up to."
Fluttershy tilted her head at him, so with a reluctant sigh and a snap of his fingers an image of Grif popped up on the screen. She walked closer to inspect his surrounding. He was sitting in a white room that had nothing but a table, a chair, and a door on each of the four walls, rubbing his head as if he had just regained consciousness.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Discord asked as he floated behind Fluttershy to look at what she was observing. "That is a maze located on the other side of Equestria. There is quite literally no way out and it has been abandoned for centuries, so I felt it was apt to use it with the other set of Elements, no?"
"I love mazes too." Caboose said, jumping towards Discord to beg. "I want to be in the maze!"
"After this is said and done, I will give the maze to you."
"Really?"
"Caboose, get over here!" Pinkie said, slightly annoyed that Caboose was warming up so well with one of the few things she recognized as someone she didn't like.
"But think of all the fun parties we can have in there!" Caboose reasoned. "Like for holidays! And maze tag!"
"Maze tag isn't as fun as it sounds." Pinkie said, taking a step towards him. "Come on, stop being silly and stand with me."
"Or stand with me." Discord smiled toothily at him. "Think about it. Twenty four seven food-nap time. All the maze you could hope to explore."
Caboose looked at Discord, then to Pinkie and frowned slightly. He then shook his head, smiled and hopped straight towards Pinkie.
"Aw, suit yourself." Discord mumbled, then smiled again when he saw Twilight and the others walking towards the statues of the sisters.
"So wait, when Celestia told me to leave she wanted to prevent this..." Church said quietly as he watched Twilight walk around the frozen sun.
"Indeed. You see, Celestia thought she destroyed the Elements of Chaos long ago when she began spreading peace throughout the land. While that made it more difficult for the Elements of Chaos to pop up naturally in ponies, she did not expect a group of ragtag simulation troopers that were constantly at war with each other to drop in to her realm. Then she started reading signs in the sky, prophecies and such."
"Prophecies? okay, maybe she really is a fucking crazy loon."
"How dare you associate her with such a luxurious title." Discord hissed, generally offended by the comment. "Besides, what makes prophecies more different than magic in terms of overall believability for you?"
"Well, for starters; prophecies sort of talk about the future. While magic just generally, y'know..."
"Bends the laws of the universe?" Discord chuckled happily at Church's face. "Yeah, you didn't think that sentence through."
"I really hate this place..."
"You hate every place, Church. That is why you are Wrath." Discord said as he poked Church's nose.
"What happened to not turning ponies into stone?" Twilight asked breathlessly as she looked at her teacher.
"Oh, that." Discord rolled his eyes as he floated up to Luna and patter her on the head. "You see, I sort of changed my style a bit. Now that the Elements of Chaos are in the way, I am free to be more reckless. Unlike a Basilisk, you're the only six I can't turn to stone. That, however, will change once they fail their Harmony tests. When that happens, I won't live like Celestia did. I will keep my enemies somewhere not in the open. Hide the Elements of Harmony away where nopony but myself can find them."
"Won't the Elements just find somebody else to go in?" Rainbow Dash asked, walking away from the rulers to interrogate Discord as best she could.
"Hah! Oh how I find your optimism simply so endearing!" Discord howled, making Rainbow Dash tremble with frustration. "You see, they would if you passed away, but since you're trapped in stone you are technically alive and the Elements, since trapped by the Elements of Chaos, will not be able to break free as the Elements of Chaos would have already proven to have stronger magic."
"Wait, what do you mean the Elements of Chaos will trap us?" Rarity asked with concern. "Even if they do somehow fail, as low of a chance as that may be, they'res till our friends and would never dream of doing anything of the like."
"Oh, didn't I mention the fact that once they succumb to the chaos their minds will change, allowing me to control them?" Discord asked sincerely, stroking his beard as gently as he could. "I was pretty sure I did."
"Wait." Church said quietly. "So it's either we change into something evil-"
"Chaos is not evil." Discord corrected him softly. "Merely a different way of doing things."
"Right, we're just trapping our friends in stone for eternity. Oh, yeah, no, that's not evil in the slightest."
"It isn't." Discord nodded in agreement.
"So it's either that, or those guys find out how to be nicer to each other?"
"Or, you know, you be yourself." Discord coughed innocently.
"He won't have to." Rainbow Dash snapped. "I believe in the guys."
"You shouldn't."
"They know what's going down-"
"No they don't."
"-And they can become serious when it's-"
"No they can't."
"Will you shut-"
"No." Discord chuckled as Rainbow Dash nearly let steam out of her nostril. "Don't believe me? Check for yourself."
"I don't need to check to prove you wrong."
"Hmph. Should be the Element of Rude. Then again, that really does fall more into Church's category." Discord said, then began beaming while waving his claw at the sphere of running images. "Speaking of,Church, will you do the honors then?"
Church glared at Discord and slowly walked up to the small sphere of light. He had to squint to make out the Tucker walking through a maze, heading straight to a room filled with mares.
"Are they... doing what I think they're doing?" Church asked quietly, backing away to respect the mares privacy.
"Indeed." Discord smiled darkly.
"And Dash is?"
"Loyalty." Discord said, not even attempting to hide a squeal of delight.
"Fuck." Church said, eyes going to the floor.
"Wait, where is Tucker heading?" Rainbow Dash asked, then saw Church blush slightly and cough the question away. With a huff, Rainbow Dash trotted up to the sphere to look at Tucker, but her eyes froze on the group of twenty mares who appeared to be in the middle of business usually kept in the bedroom. Something Tucker has been hinting at ever since he got there. Something Rainbow Dash has been denying the sexually restricted stallion ever since then. "We're doomed..."