//------------------------------// // Discorded // Story: My Little Kingdom: The Key to Harmony // by Mekapix //------------------------------// “Are they going to be ok in there? They are against Nightmare Moon after all!” Rarity yelled to the four remaining mares as they charged through the forest. “I hope they will be, Sora sounded like he had some sort of plan to beat her.” Twilight replied. “Don’t forget that he has Rainbow with him, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.” Applejack added. “They are fighting Nightmare Moon so we can stop Discord in Ponyville, we can’t waste that chance.” They all agreed and kept heading towards the town. Heartless started to rise from the ground in their way, determined to stop the ponies but they were just cut down by their Keyblades instead. “Uhm…not that I’m complaining but why aren’t the heartless very strong? Discord doesn’t want us coming so you would’ve thought he’d send stronger ones to stop us.” Fluttershy asked the rest of the group. Twilight shook her head in response. “I have no idea, it could mean maybe he’s weak, maybe the stronger ones are in town I don’t know. I just hope we won’t be too late.” They all hurried faster, eventually breaking through the bushes and entering the town. A look of horror washed over their faces as they saw a mix of shadows and Neoshadows running towards the town, ponies screaming and running home at the mere sight of them. “Come on, we gotta stop ‘em!” Applejack yelled as she began charging towards the heartless. The others quickly followed behind as they charged towards the horde, yelling at the top of their lungs. XXX Black tendrils flew across the room and impaled the ground where the navy blue unicorn once stood, he had quickly rolled to the side and the black bolt of lightning that shot towards him was then blocked by another lightning bolt that was cast by the Rainbow Pegasus. As the alicorn monster looked over at Rainbow Dash, Sora fired a blast of magic towards the side of her face only to watch it get eaten by the dark snake protruding from her shoulder. The snake’s mouth leaked a little bit of a dark aura before re opening its mouth, firing a blast of dark magic back at the unicorn. He managed to block the attack but winced as he felt the impact of the attack, he jumped back and motioned Rainbow Dash to come closer. “We got to find a way of stopping those heads! I could do a lot of damage with my magic in this state but those snake things keep eating it and firing it back.” Rainbow looked at the creature and dodged as it struck out with its tendrils. “I know but we tried to cut them off before, they just grow back! How do we beat something like that?” She asked. Sora frowned and threw up a reflect barrier as the mare of the moon continued her barrage of attacks. “We don’t have long…” Sora started. “We need to help the others and the longer I’m in this form, the higher the chance I’ll pass out again after the fight and won’t be able to help the others in town.” He stated. Rainbow gave a nod as she remembered what happened when he was a pegasus. She looked around for anything that could help and got an idea, whispering it to Sora as he kept the barrier up. “Do you think we could break them?” He asked her. She shook her head and pointed to the dark mare. “I don’t think we could but she might.” Sora looked at their opponent with a confused expression. It took him a few moments but a grin grew on his face as he understood Rainbow’s idea. He nodded to her and waited for the attacks to stop. The moment Nightmare Moon stopped, Sora dropped the reflect spell and ran to one side of the room while Rainbow Dash flew to the other side. Sora ran round the side of the room, firing blasts of magic at the dark alicorn. She just caught the blast with the dark snake coming out of her shoulder, firing it back and smashing the wall behind Sora as he kept moving. Sora reached the back of the room, still having the blast follow behind him at each step. As he reached the back of the room, Rainbow flew down to the alicorn and slashed off one of the snake heads. The creature roared and fired off a stream of black lightning, Rainbow dodged the attack easily and flew along the wall edge, the lightning ripped through the wall behind her and followed behind. She flapped her wings harder as the lightning closed in, the end of her tail getting slightly singed. Rainbow let out a small eep and hurried her pace, eventually she managed to reach Sora and nodded to him. He nodded and jumped up in the air. Rainbow flew and grabbed him, flying up in the air as the lightning blast met where she had ripped through the wall chasing Sora. The wall groaned as it started to shake, falling forward and nearly crushing the alicorn but she just managed to hold the wall up with her magic, avoiding her defeat. “We were so close!” Rainbow yelled as they watched Nightmare Moon slowly push the wall upwards, Sora scowled until an idea spawned in his head. “Drop me!” He yelled up at Rainbow. “Are you nuts?!” “It’s arguable now do it! Trust me!” Rainbow hesitated for a few moments. She gulped nervously and nodded, letting Sora drop down towards the slowly rising wall. He flew down towards the wall, grasping his Keyblade in his hooves and the tip began glowing a black colour. He pointed the Keyblade downward as he approached the fallen wall and stopped as the power of his spell forced him to stay in mid air. “Gravity!” He yelled. The force added onto the wall caused it to slam into the ground, a loud slamming sound echoed outwards as large black wisps shot up from under the collapsed wall. Sora landed on the debris and his colours faded back to brown, his horn disappearing from his body as he fell onto his stomach panting heavily. He spluttered a little and the rainbow maned pony flew down to his side, pointing her Keyblade at the brown earth pony and releasing a burst of green energy onto him. He smiled up at her and slowly got to his hooves as she let out a sigh of relief. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?! What if that hadn’t worked?” She moaned at him. He grinned at her and shrugged. “Well it did work and I’m alive so it’s ok.” He replied. She huffed before looking over at the doorway, the rubble had fallen down during the collapse of the castle walls. “We better get moving. The harrd part still isn’t over.” XXX Pinkie brought down her Keyblade on a small heartless that was scratching at the door of Sugarcube Corner. “Are you ok in there?” Pinkie shouted at the door. She pressed her ear up to the door to listen out for any reply. “We’re fine, what’s going on out there?!” She heard a female voice yell. She smiled and let out a sigh of relief. “It’ll be ok Mrs. Cake, just make sure you all stay inside and you’ll be safe.” Pinkie waited for an ok and left once she heard it. She ran back to Twilight and helped her defeat a few heartless that surrounded her. “The Cakes are ok!” She told Twilight. The unicorn nodded back with a smile and shot a fire spell at an approaching heartless, she squinted a little and waved as Applejack speeded towards them. “Ah managed to get the little ones and their parents inside the barn. It should be safe in there, the walls are pretty thick and it’s hard to get inside. The heartless don’t seem to be around the barn either.” She explained. The heartless were starting to grow thin but the dark cloud still hovered over the town. “Where’s Rarity and Fluttershy?” She then asked. “Fluttershy went to get the animals at her cottage to safety and Rarity went with her to keep her safe.” Twilight explained. “So what do we do while they are there? Any clue where Discord is?” Applejack asked, Twilight just shook her head. “No idea…” XXX “I never thought that I, Discord, Lord of chaos and disharmony, would be looking through a library to look up history…” Discord whined and he threw books across the floor. He dragged books out of their shelves and stared at their covers before throwing them behind them. “No. no. no. no. no! no!! NO! Why am I looking through these books when I could be out their spreading the darkness across the world?” Discord moaned. ‘Simple, the keyholes are usually in places of great importance and they are date back to as far as anyone can remember.’ Maleficent stated. “And you expect me to find a reference in one of these books? Wouldn’t it be better to just go around until I find it?” He asked her. ‘You’ve felt it for yourself, he’s beaten your creation and it’s highly likely that he’s on his way here. You need to hurry and find that keyhole!’ She ordered him. He sighed as he flicked through the book Equestrian history for children. His eyes suddenly widened as he flicked back a few pages and compared the information. He groaned loudly and placed his paw to his forehead as a grin spread on his face. “Of course…I really should have guessed it from the beginning…” He muttered. ‘You’ve found it?’ The witch asked him. He nodded a little before wondering if she even knew he nodded. “Yes dear Maleficent, I believe I’ve found it at long last.” He said as he got back up. Maleficent didn’t like the way she was addressed but ignored it for a better idea. ‘Good but before we head there, I believe I’ve thought of a wonderful way to stop those wretched fools. I’m aware you have a rather unique ability that we may be able to increase greatly…’ Discord listened to the dark witches plan as she unravelled it inside his mind, letting out a loud laugh once she had finished. “Oh Maleficent” He said. “We were made for each other…” XXX Fluttershy and Rarity made a joint strike through three Neoshadows as they made their way through to the others. They let out a sigh of relief as they saw the earth ponies and the unicorn easily holding their ground against the dwindling numbers of the enemy. “Hey girls, did you manage to get the animals to safety?” Pinkie asked the two approaching mares. “Yes we did, they’re either hiding underground or in the caves in the forest, the heartless don’t seem to be around those areas.” Fluttershy explained. “Probably because they are scouting for the keyhole.” Twilight added. “You think Sora and Dash are ok?” Applejack asked. Twilight smiled with confidence and nodded to the cow pony. “I doubt they’d be beaten by an incomplete copy of Nightmare Moon.” Applejack felt herself become filled with confidence and nodded back in agreement. “Well well well… Someone’s getting rather confident now aren’t they?” A gruff voice stated from behind them. The five ponies turned slowly and readied their weapons as Discord stood further down the street with crossed arms and a cocky smirk painted on his face. “You know, I’m sure this town looked like there were more ponies in it before, where did they all go?” “Discord! What are you trying to gain from this?!” Twilight yelled to him. The Lord of disharmony facepalmed and sighed. “Oh Twilight… I want Equestria, we already covered this. For the brightest of Celestia’s pupils, not so good with the listening are you?” He teased, grabbing his own ear to add emphasis to his point. Twilight growled at him and would have likely charged at him then and there if Applejack hadn’t put her hoof in front of the unicorn. “Why attack Ponyville? There’s nothing for you to gain from it.” She stated. He just chuckled to himself. “I needed to know something, the information was here, I came to get it and now I have it. By the way, you might need to clean up your library Twilight, someone has made a large mess in there.” He let out another laugh as he revelled in his jokes. Twilight just scowled as he injured her pride again. “Oh, did I hit a nerve?” He said with his cocky smile. “Yeah right, you couldn’t hit the side of a barn door!” A familiar mares voice rang through and caught his ear, he looked behind the group with a look as his cocky grin became a look of disdain when he saw Rainbow Dash and Sora run towards them. The other five gave a sigh of relief as their group became complete again. “Hmph, you didn’t want to play with the mare of the moon anymore?” He asked as he kept an unsatisfied look on his face. “We would of but we were a little pressed for time.” Sora said with a proud grin on his face. Rainbow just facehoofed with a smile at the cheesy joke while Discord raised an eyebrow unimpressed, a few moments later he sighed and shrugged. “No matter, I blame the fact that she was incomplete.” “I’d blame the fact you’re not as strong as you think.” Sora replied. The creature grinded his teeth in frustration. “You rely on tricks and others to break down your opponents for you. We rely on the strength of our friendship and our hearts, that’s why we won’t ever lose!” Discord placed his talons together, opening and closing them repeatedly. “Blah blah blah friendship, blah blah blah light, blah blah blah ‘we will win’, SERIOUSLY!” He complained. “All you good guys sound like stuck record players, do you have some kind of book that you memorise or is it in a kind of chant?” He placed his paw in the air and put his talon to his chest. “I solemly swear that I will use the same lines when facing my enemies. I mean if you’re trying to bore into submission then please continue, it just might work!” Discord winced and put his talon and paw to his chest, feeling an odd mix of pain and fear shoot up inside him. He eventually managed to calm himself down and the feeling in his chest subsided. “Sorry about that, a good and true ruler must remain calm and collective at all times.” He stroked his beard as he peered down at the ponies. “Now, it’s time I take my leave but first, a little gift.” He grinned as he disappeared into a veil of black smoke. All seven of them looked around for him until they heard Discord’s voice speak up from behind. “Now you see little Sora.” They turned to face him and moved back a little. “I realise that your friendship is indeed strong, as is the fact that when you’re all united I have little chance of beating you. It isn’t easy to beat all seven of you, especially when you’re the leader of the group and wielder of the Keyblade so this begs the question. How can I stop you leading, take away the Keyblade away from you and get rid of you all at the same time?” Then Discord shot him a wicked smile. “Simple…” Sora looked at the Lord of chaos and disharmony confused and was completely caught off guard as Discord flew forward and grabbed the colt by his throat. “I bring out the worst in you.” Discord’s claw that held onto Sora’s throat began glowing with a dark aura while his claw gained a grey hue. The hue, followed by the dark aura, latched onto Sora’s body and crawled along it, slithering all across his form. The elements of harmony could only watch in horror as their friend’s body turned grey then jet black before Discord dropped him on the ground. Sora yelped as his body turned black. Once his body had changed colour, he stood slouched over on his back hooves, his knees going forward instead of back. His forehooves shook violently as the circumference shrank and claws grew out of them, his spiked mane grew outward and became unruly, starting to hang down his face. He looked over at the six mares and looks of absolute terror were plastered on their faces as they saw that his bright blue eyes had been replaced by yellow circles. He now looked exactly like the enemy. Discord howled in laughter as Sora just stood there, watching his old friends. “This is amazing! Absolutely perfect!” He then started coughing as the small pain in his chest returned then faded again just as quick. “Well then, have fun now.” Discord snapped his talons and vanished into a dark mist as the cloud above began moving again. Fluttershy took a few steps forward as she cautiously approached Sora. “Sora…Is that still you…?” He tilted his head and took a step forward. “Sora…?” He jumped forward faster than anypony had expected. Fluttershy shut her eyes as tears started forming in them, expecting to be hit but the attack never came. She opened her eyes and looked up to see Twilight holding up a reflect spell, keeping their recently made friend from scratching them to pieces. He jumped back after attacking the transparent shell and watched as the two ponies were joined by the other four. “We aren’t going to kill him are we…?” Fluttershy asked as she looked up at her friends. Applejack shook her head and helped the pegasus back up to her hooves. “Now we won’t. We will knock sense back into him though.”