As Snare Trap trotted alongside Discord in the endless dimension, a barrage of questions planted themselves into his artificial head. All of the questions were probably ones that Discord could answer, (well if he was cooperative) but probably wouldn't, still it couldn't hurt to try. After all, if he was going to roam this dimension with Discord forever, it would be on his terms! Who was he kidding? He would be lucky to get one answer out of Discord. Nevertheless, Snare decided to go with the question that would be the easiest for Discord to answer.
"Discord, why did you give me this horrible color scheme?" Snare Trap asked with a childlike innocence.
"You think it's horrible? Well that hurts, it really does." Discord faked sadness.
Snare Trap sighed, of course anything involving Discord wouldn't be easy. "Oh c'mon, I have like the weirdest colors ever. Just look at this!"
Discord grew eyes in the side of his head and looked over Snare Trap once. Now that he thought about it, Discord's powers were a little frightening. A strange thought for one who was literally created by Discord's abilities, but he was a thoughtful real-fake pony after all.
"Forgive me, but I'm not seeing the problem here, I think your design is wonderful, inspired, one might even say... cool!" Discord created a giant thumbs up paw to emphasize his point.
Snare Trap frowned and lowered his head at this. All he wanted was to do was question the strange pattern of his hair colors to his spirit of chaos creator, now was that so hard? Discord got the message and made the giant paw vanish into midair.
"Don't be so glum, chummy chum chum!" Discord playfully punched Snare's shoulder to little effect. "Wipe that frown off your crown! You live in a dimension where we can create anything we want, whenever we want, unless it makes sense, because that's just no fun."
Snare Trap stopped trotting and lifted his head to where he was staring his "father" in the face, although he knew there was no way he looked even the least bit threatening, it was worth a shot. "You mean that you can create anything you want, whenever you want, which leads me to my next question, why don't I have powers? You created me, the least you could do is give at least a portion of your abilities!"
Discord threw back his head and let out a gasp that was clearly rehearsed. "Now listen here my ungrateful little pony, I made you to be my sidekick and sidekicks don't get cool powers, understood?"
Discord stared right back at Snare Trap's eyes with double the force of his stare. Now that he was staring directly into the chaos god's piercing yellow eyes, he lost all of his will to fight back and simply felt like submitting to whatever Discord said. Snare looked away, unable to allow himself to be controlled by Discord's chaos vision any longer, which was strange and horrifying because Discord wasn't using his vision powers, he was just simply staring at him.
He looked ahead into the endless depths of the mostly blank dimension. "Fine, I'll drop it for now, but this isn't over."
"Marvelous!" Discord snapped back into his joyful mood. "Now let's discuss where we want to place the bowling alley, I'm thinking next to the all-you-can't-eat chaotic dinner theater, but then there's the bottomless pit to consider..."
It's always sunny in Canterlot, no matter what anypony thought about the city, the one thing that stood true above all else is the fact it simply has good weather 24/7. Nopony knows if it's because Princess Celestia wills it to be, or if Canterlot is just such a nice city that even the weather is nice. Actually, since Canterlot is mostly made of snobs, ignore that last thought. These were the thoughts going through Twilight Sparkle's head as she stepped off the train from Ponyville and stared into the sunny sky, letting out a sigh of happiness in the process.
"What'cha staring at, Twilight?" Pinkie Pie asked as she happily bounced out of the train behind Twilight.
Twilight smiled and playfully rolled her eyes at her pink friend's caring and yet random nature, even if it could be a tad bit annoying at times. "There's not much to stare at in the afternoon sky is there, Pinkie?"
Pinkie continued to bounce in a circle around Twilight as she answered. "Well, usually there's just the sun, and looking at the sun hurts a lot, especially if you don't look away fast enough, so I figured you weren't looking at the sun, but you were looking at the sky, so I thought that maybe you saw something else like a balloon or a rock or- ooo! Maybe a flying house!"
Not knowing where to begin, Twilight merely stared at Pinkie and asked "A flying house?"
Pinkie nodded her head at the speed of light and stopped abruptly five seconds later. She turned a quarter-circle to the left as her eyes widened. "Oh. My. Gosh. They added a new bakery since we've last been here!" Pinkie leaped into the air and took off in the direction she was pointed at.
Even after all this time she and Pinkie had been friends, it was still a little hard to just shrug off her randomness, then again, you're not supposed to be prepared for randomness, right? Soon her other four friends joined her outside the train. Knowing that her purple friend was deep in thought, Rainbow Dash snicked to herself as she sneakily flew to the far right and zoomed to the far left, leaving a bright rainbow-speckled trail right in front Twilight's face. She yelped and leaped backwards into Applejack who was last to leave the train.
"Rainbow Dash! What was that for?" Twilight demanded as she jumped off of Applejack who was slowly getting back on her hooves.
"Thanks for the help, Twilight." Applejack mumbled sarcastically as she stretched out her body.
"Because it was funny, duh!" Came Rainbow's joyful reply. Upon a quick turnaround in midair, she realized that her marefriend was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, where'd Pinkie Pie go?"
"She trotted- well, more like rocketed off to check some new bakery out."
Rainbow settled on the ground and began trotting into the city. "Well, we better catch her before she does something...pink, c'mon slowpokes!"
"Sometimes I wonder why we bring Pinkie on these little trips of ours if she's just going to be a distraction." Rarity chided as she began trotting after Rainbow.
"Rarity. Pinkie's our friend, we simply must invite her." Fluttershy softly criticized as she trotted alongside Rarity.
"I know darling, I just don't think that we can afford to be delayed by even a minute when it's the princess that we're delaying."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the princess can...wait, until we make sure Pinkie isn't causing the destruction of Canterlot, again." Twilight said as she paced next to her friends while she glanced around nervously.
"Quit your worryin' Twilight... that is, if you are worryin' about somethin' sometimes Ah just can't tell." Applejack half reassured her friend.
Twilight returned her attention to the sky, in reality, she was wondering what the princess wanted this time. She didn't dare say it out loud, or even think it too hard, but the constant trips to and from Canterlot to receive some epic quest that might cost her her life could get a little frustrating at times. It wasn't that she didn't want to be her most faithful student, she just wished she could visit Canterlot for some time with her friends and family, instead of fending off invasions. Any thought she would have had after that was interrupted by a BANG! Followed by an equally loud "HOW DARE YOU!"
"If it says 'Grand opening' then shouldn't it have a party?" Pinkie Pie asked happily as she munched on her slightly squashed cupcake while Rainbow Dash laughed hysterically behind her.
"Pinkie!" Twilight shouted as she magically combed the frosting out of her mane. "Just because they're celebrating something doesn't mean they need confetti!"
"It kinda does." Rainbow called out when she finally stopped laughing long enough to calm down.
Applejack was combing the frosting out of Fluttershy's mane with her hoof while she whimpered softly, meanwhile Rarity trotted up to them after fleeing the scene when they starting throwing cupcakes everywhere shouting "My hair!" while she galloped off. "The nerve of them, launching pastries at us like that, you'd think they would have more common sense than that."
"What the hay are you talkin' about? We were the ones takin' all the hits while you were off who know's where!" Applejack snapped while she rubbed the frosting off her hooves.
"I-It wasn't s-so bad." Fluttershy tried to interject even though she shaking uncontrollably, the memory of the recent attack on her and her friends still fresh in her mind... and her hair.
"Honesty though, was the party cannon really necessary?" Twilight pondered as she estimated how long it would take to reach the castle now.
"Duh! Like I said, they really needed a party." Pinkie responded as she reloaded the mentioned cannon that appeared in thin air.
Twilight rolled her eyes like that and turned on Rainbow. "And you didn't do a thing to stop this like maybe, I don't know, pull her away or even explain the situation?"
Rainbow fidgeted with her mane. "Well, I was going to do something like that, but Pinkie handed me a cupcake and it was really good, so, uh... actually I thought it'd be funny so I just sat back and watched, sorry." Rainbow admitted with a faint tint of red appearing on her cheeks.
Twilight facehooved and slowly dragged it down her face. "Well, that's just great!"
"I said I was sorry!" Rainbow called from behind her.
"Not that!" Twilight responded angrily. "We've spent too much time on this, we need to get to the castle right now!"
Applejack stamped her sticky hooves in frustration. "No use, we have to use magic."
"That's a lot of energy for all six of us, let's just start galloping, like right now." Twilight responded.
"Ah mean this blasted frosting, it's not comin' out of Fluttershy's mane!" Applejack gestured to Fluttershy who was tightly curled in a ball muttering nonsense about "The sugar."
Twilight magically (and roughly) combed all the frosting out of Fluttershy's hair and levitated her onto her hooves while she continued to whimper softly. "Now let's go already!"
As soon as the six friends burst into the castle, they could tell by the look on Princess Celestia's face that their bad luck was showing. It truly was amazing how many things can go wrong in one day. After they raced off in the direction of the castle, Twilight went through a number of ways to explain to the princess why they were late, but she lost her train of thought when her and her friends were halted by a stallion who told them that they had to wait like everypony else. Twilight was about to tell him off for speaking nonsense when she noticed that there was a long line leading up to the castle doors. As Twilight attempted to explain that she had an audience with the princess, the stallion got physical, which resulted in Rainbow Dash getting physical, which, of course, resulted in an all-out brawl right in front of the castle.
"G-good afternoon, Princess Celestia." Twilight stammered out as she poorly attempted to trot calmly up to Celestia's throne and bow respectfully.
The other five didn't even attempt to hide their bad luck as they copied Twilight. As they got up, Twilight put on a large smile which might have worked if her friends didn't collapse around her from exhaustion. "We might have run into a bit of trouble on the way over here."
"Did you now? I was wondering what that explosion was, I was about to send a team of guards to investigate." Celestia said coolly.
"Heh, yeah that was us, but we also may have, sorta, accidentally-"
"We started a fight!" Rainbow Dash shouted proudly.
"Rainbow!" Twilight scolded.
"A fight? That sounds like a story I'd want to hear." Celestia replied.
Twilight couldn't help but admire how calm her teacher always was, even in times of chaos. She hoped to achieve that level of demeanor one day, but she obviously still had a long ways to go. "Well actually princess, there's not much to tell, I don't know if you noticed, but you have an angry line of ponies waiting outside... well now they're brawling outside, hehe."
"Yes, I've taken notice, it's actually part of the reason that I've called you all here, you're all familiar with Discord." Celestia stated while glancing at her side.
At the mention of their enemy-turned-friend, everypony had different reactions. Rainbow Dash rose into the air and crossed her forelegs, Pinkie Pie face turned into a confused expression, Rarity huffed and tilted her head upward, Applejack kicked at the ground a few times and Fluttershy sat up straight and stopped muttering. "Has something happened to him?" She asked immediately.
"That's why you're all here, after Discord and I had a minor disagreement, he stormed off, technically speaking of course. He was last seen heading into the woods, I would send a fleet of guards to find him, but I doubt they would have any luck. Without Discord here, I'm unable to solve the problems of my more needy subjects, therefore, you must bring him back here as soon as possible. "
Rainbow Dash landed, looking angry. "So we finally got Discord out of our lives, and now you want us to waste our time looking for him, only to bring him back in?! You've gotta be kidd-"
"We'll do our best, princess." Fluttershy interrupted.
Rainbow Dash was too distracted by the fact that she just got interrupted by Fluttershy of all ponies, to continue her rant.
"I have the utmost confidence in your success." Celestia replied, ignoring Rainbow Dash's anger.
"Let's go, girls!" Twilight called as she bowed one last time and ran to the castle doors.
The others followed suit, even the reluctant multi-colored Pegasus. "Can't believe this..."
It does feel odd to go out of their way to set Discord straight when he even remotely steps out of line, but what could they do? Anything for the princess... at least that's how things seem to play out. How would Princess Celestia even react if Twilight decided to reject her order for once? No, she couldn't even think about disobeying the princess, that would have consequences, not just for her, but for Equestria.
As soon as the doors opened again, it was clear that the brawl didn't even begin to show signs of slowing down. Ponies were still trading blows left and right, not to mention the occasional blast of magic and floating Pegasus feathers. Twilight looked over her shoulder to see if the princess was seeing this, but she seemed to have gone into another room as soon the doors opened. Twilight mentally sighed and turned to her friends.
"Okay girls, there's no way we can risk going back in there." She gestured to the chaos behind her. "So does anypony have any ideas?"
Twilight searched her friend's faces for answers, none of them seemed to be thinking very hard anyway, and Fluttershy had an entirely different game face on. As she wondered what to do, she noticed that somepony was missing. As she resisted the urge to facehoof again, she scanned Pinkie's face for an answer to confirm her fears. Pinkie put on a nervous smile and pulled a cyan cupcake out of nowhere.
Oh no. Twilight thought as she slowly turned towards the battle, only to see a colorful blur moving through the crowd, making ponies fly around. How did she even get by me?
Twilight had half a mind to tell Rainbow Dash off for willingly throwing herself back into the battle until Applejack gestured at Rainbow. "Wait y'all! Look at what she's doin'."
She took a closer look at the blur moving around without rhyme or reason. At first she saw nothing, but then she realized that Rainbow seemed to be pushing ponies aside down the middle of the crowd instead of at random. It seemed like she was making... a path. It she didn't know better, she could have sworn a light bulb went off over her head.
"Everypony, run down the middle!" Twilight shouted to her friends as she took the lead.
As she entered the ridiculous of this schoolyard brawl, she knew that this wasn't going to die down anytime soon. It felt like negative energy was radiating off these normally civil ponies as she ran past. The look of murder staring daggers at anypony unlucky enough to be caught in their field of vision. Why were they like this? Is it really so bad that their needs weren't getting listened to? Then again, their situations were similar to hers in a way... she had to stop thinking like that.
As they reached the other side, she looked over her shoulder to make sure the others were following her and was surprised to see that Fluttershy was galloping right at her side. It was amazing what determination could do to this shy mare, especially if it's a friend doing it. Finally, they exited the crowd and entered the forest. Rainbow Dash joined them a few minutes later.
"I'll take my compliments now, thank you very much." She said confidently as she flew in front of them.
"Your plan was crazy and ill-advised." Twilight mumbled.
Rainbow shot her a glance and did a barrel roll so that she was facing forwards. "I didn't see any of you coming up with anything."
Twilight opened her mouth to argue but got interrupted by Applejack. "Look, we made it through, does it really matter? How about we focus on what to do next?"
As usual, Applejack was right, what did they do now? It was unlikely that Discord was just sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest, but then again, it was unlikely of Discord to do anything. Either way, he wouldn't have walked far in the forest without doing something.
"Let's stop in the clearing up ahead and look around." Twilight stated.
They slowed to trot as they entered the wide area in the forest. As Twilight trotted around, she could feel something off here, off in a mystic sense of the word. "Can anypony else feel that?"
"Feel what?"
"I can feel the filthy mud on my delicate hooves."
"What are you talking about, egghead?"
"Does it feel like a kumquat?"
"I can't feel anything."
If none of her friends can feel it, then it must be because it has a relation to magic. She did have a new spell to uncover dark presence but this wasn't dark, at least it didn't feel dark... she better cast it anyway, better to be safe than sorry. She surged magic into her horn and released it into the form of a purple wave washing over the specific area. Nothing happened. Well, on to the next spell she supposed. As she readied her magic to perform the next spell, a small spark appeared in mid air. She wouldn't even had noticed if the spark didn't release a powerful wave of magic afterwards.
"What the?" Twilight thought aloud as she backed away from the area.
Her friends ran to her side as the spark reappeared slightly larger than before.
"Twilight? What was that?" Asked Applejack.
She opened her mouth to respond, but the portal that blasted into existence interrupted her. The portal was more like a giant ball of magic than anything else, but she knew it was a portal because it was created by a familiar form of magic.
"This feels... familiar." Twilight said as she rubbed her chin.
"Is it gonna eat us?" Pinkie asked happily. "Because I don't think we taste very good, but it's gotta eat something right? Whoa!" She shouted as the portal turned on it's vacuum mode and sucked Pinkie Pie in it.
They all gasped and backed away except for Rainbow Dash who shouted "Pinkie!" And flew after her marefriend straight into the large glowing orb. By now, the other three were shrieking excitedly as they looked to each to decide what to do.
"We can't just stand here! That thing ate our friends!" Applejack yelled, pointing at the portal like it was some kind of monster.
"Well we can't just leap in there, we don't even know where it leads to!" Twilight said with uncertainty in her voice.
It was true that they didn't know where the portal lead to, but their friends were in there somewhere and they couldn't just leave them there.
"The longer we stand around, we more time we're wastin'. YEE-HAW!" Applejack yelled as she charged into the portal.
Down to three. Now three of their friends have entered a one-way portal... what point was there anymore?
"C'mon girls." Twilight said calmly as she levitated herself, Rarity and Fluttershy directly into the portal.
Travelling across time and space through a mysterious portal they knew nothing about wasn't as bad as one would think. Everything was a calm white, and it actually felt slightly pleasant, like you were at peace... at least until she was launched out of it like a cannonball. She hit the ground snout first and let out a yelp of pain while she held her pained snout. She let go of her snout for a moment to feel the ground below her, the ground was smooth and white, she definitely entered another dimension entirely.
After hearing a soft yelp of pain and an over-dramatic yelp behind her, she could confirm that they landed in the same area, now if she could only look up, she could find out where- is that a goat leg in front of her? With a dragon leg right next to it? There was only one being she knew with that type of body, and his voice speaking loud and clear in her ears only further confirmed her fears.
"I've been expecting you, Ms. Sparkle."