"Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!" I huffed out, hearing the sound of tromping hooves following after me from behind the door. The second floor consisted of a hallway that had doors ranging down on its left and right before sharply turning at the end.
With no time to think, I just picked a door and rushed through it.
"Don't enter, don't enter, don't enter," I kept quietly repeating.
"Psst!" I heard come from behind me. Opening my eyes, I had just realized the room was entirely black. "This is my room," a childish voice whispered out as I turned, seeing only a white pony face. It just floated in space, no eyes, no ears, just a neck, a smile, and a crack coming from its eye going down its cheek to the side.
Alongside the floating head was a chair, just below a hangman's noose... or I guess a hangmare's noose, really depending.
"Do you see how dark it is?" The face asked, it's mouth not moving as it kept staring at me.
I kept my back to the door and briefly jiggled the handle to see if the door was locked and was confirmed to my horror. I figured that I was going to be stuck, so why not answer the creepy looking skull... face... thing.
"I... Yeah. Plenty dark. Could use a flashlight or something to add to the mood," I cautiously suggested, still keeping my eyes on the face.
"It's cold," the voice shivered out. "But I can look at you."
The face started to slowly float towards me, prompting me to start jiggling the handle a bit more harder.
"N-nice to know! Cold? Sucks, man! Let me find you a blanket or something!" I hastily said, now hearing my heart beating slowly in my ears.
"Look at me," the voice ordered, prompting my heart to beat faster as the face kept approaching. "Are you scared?"
"Scared?! Me? Ha Ha!" I shakily chuckled. "I'm just, uh, claustrophobic! Room's way to small for me, listen, you have a key?"
The face was now only a few inches from my muzzle as a cold air rushed behind me. "I am scared," it whispered.
With a click at the door, I forcibly left the room and slammed the door behind me, breathing hastily as a small laugh was let out behind the door. I had figured that the Nightmare crew would've been swarmed in the hallway already. That was when I realized that many of the doors were gone and a few had remained. I was curious as to why when I noticed a green tail had slipped beyond the corner on my right.
"Linda!" I yelled out, sprinting to the corner and finding she was gone.
More doors and another need to make a decision. I had no doubt that this was some odd maze that Discord had built up to screw with any intruders, or worst yet, just me.
Not taking chances, I crept up beside a door and twisted the knob slowly. With the click, I cautiously pulled the door open a crack to see inside. The sound of a loud city block, complete with car horns, mumbling pedestrians, and a baby crying met my ears. Not wanting to get into a town inside a castle, I passed.
Picking another door, I proceeded to do the same action. At the click of the knob, this time the door was shot open by Discord. He had kicked the door so hard, that the grip I had on the knob flung me further down the hallway. Stepping out, he had a glock in one paw, a doorag on his head, and a pair of sunglasses on.
"Hey, lookit here," Discord cockily mentioned as he strolled to where I was on the floor. "Guess scum wanna stay on the floor and make the place look bad. Not in this household, no sir, not in front of me."
He pointed the glock down at me, sideways. Idiot. Rising up, I rolled the gun out of Discord's paw and tried holding on to it with both forehooves at him.
"How'd you not get burned?" I yelled at Discord, who had already ditched the doorag and sunglasses.
"Really? That's the first question on your mind?" Discord sarcastically questioned. "Not, 'Why are you dressed like a gang member?' Not, 'How come you have a gun?' Just that?"
"I'll shoot ya," I threatened, pointing the gun at his face. "Don't think I won't do it, maniac."
Discord laughed as I attempted to cock the gun with my chin. "And how are you going to pull the trigger, hot shot? I don't think you have fingers that can do that for you."
With a click, I gulped. I now held a loaded gun with no way of actually firing it. With no time to think, I whipped back my forehooves and then forward to throw the gun at Discord as a distraction before picking out another door and entering.
Hoping that escape could be relatively easy, I scanned the room for any other doors or options of escape.
"There you are, let's get him!"
By this point I had realized two of Nightmare Moon's guards were also in the confined space.
With nowhere to go but forward, I met their charge and attempted to throw them off balance to get a better idea of where exactly I was. After hitting the guard on the right, I jumped on his back to get minor leverage on his partner and to make him hit the floor. I had realized that the guard was charging a magic blast and pulled the staff out to meet his attack.
Sure enough, the blast was contained in the orb, making it shine brighter. The shocked guard watched as I wound up and struck him in the chest. As the orb hit the chest though, a loud boom came from it and sent the guard flying through the wall. Getting off the other guard, I looked to the orb to find it was not shining again.
"Now you can hit hard as well as shoot sparks?" I asked the inanimate gem. "Come on, jewel, gimmie some instruction as to what the hell I can do before it happens."
The room looked to be a simple bedroom. A bed, drawers, a television set... hang on just a moment.
Going to a window and looking out it appeared that I was inside a hotel in... Las Pegasus?
"How in the-?" I began to question before the door opened, Discord with a tray in his hand as he entered.
"Did somepony order the knuckle sandwich?" He asked, revealing on the tray was a breaded fist. The fist came to life and jumped from the tray towards me at an unnatural speed. It followed my movements as I tried to leap from bed, to chair, to the top of the television set. Discord had been laughing at the antics going on before I found the opportunity to pass him and out the door back to the hallway in Canterlot.
Jumping from the TV set and glancing the wall with my wing, I passed Discord as he spun to see me leave through the door.
"Oh no you-" he started before getting hammered by the flying fist that bashed the back of his head.
"Gotta find the rest of the guys," I thought, now trying to find another door. Opening one, I was knocked over by a wall of playpen balls that covered half the hallway. Popping up and spitting out a ball, another face pulled up from the avalanche.
"Turner? What the hell are you doing in a room full of playpen balls?" I angrily asked, still upset about being bowled over by plastic balls.
"I don't know, really," he started. "After the idea of splitting up to cover more ground, all of us picked a door and I had fallen through mine into the pit. Been trying to find a door through all of the bright colors and somehow I kept getting lost."
I gave a small nod, thinking back to a really old memory of being unable to get out of a ballpit once and crying out for my mother. I was five, okay? I had a right to cry when I was that young.
"Well, when I got through a door I met a white face that just stared at me in a room with a hangmare's noose and a chair!" I exclaimed. "I think it wanted me to kill myself, or just be really creepy."
"Ha ha," the chuckle of the White Face had called out, very close by.
"Wheresit?!" I screamed, knowing it wasn't far.
"What are you yelling abou-?" Turner began to ask until he saw another face raise up from the ball pit.
I turned to see the White Face had come up, now staring down at both of us.
"Stay with me, I'll always be here," it said before both of us screamed in fear and started running for our lives down the hallway.
"It's right behind us!" Turner yelled as I picked a door and opened it.
"Go! Go! Go!" I yelled, ushering Time Turner in and then shutting the door behind me.
When we both entered, the lights were off as both of us tried to catch our breaths.
"And what was that just now?" A female voice questioned.
I gave a yelp, and found out it was more high-pitched than usual. "Who's there?"
I paused, now trying to make my voice sound like it had before, but finding it was more feminine.
"What the fuck?! This room makes us sound like women!" I screamed.
A light clacked on and Discord was sitting on a barstool... but he looked different. His beard was gone, but now he had long white hair. His form looked leaner too, and where those lumps under his coat?
"No, Bait. This room makes you the opposite gender," Eris giggled, turning on the rest of the lights to see Time Turner was now a mare.
We both screamed and pointed to each other, "You're a mare! I'm a mare?!"
Promptly we looked down at ourselves and gripped each other in a hug of fear, screaming out as Eris laughed at our panic.
"Calm down," Time Turner attempted to calmly say. "We're still us, just in a different gender. I'm still The Doctor and you are still you!"
"I'm not going to get calm!" I screeched back. "Discord, you stole my manhood, and now my stallionhood. I'm killing you, now!"
Yelling out in a rage, the staff was whipped out and bashed into the side of Eris' face, careening her through another door and promptly switching her back into Discord's male self. Discord rubbed the side of his face before he saw me rushing after him with the staff raised up to strike him again. Discord jumped up and slammed a steel wall down were the door was.
"Can't catch what you can't catch!" Discord taunted out from behind the barrier.
"Don't make me wreck your shit," I threatened. "I'll do it! Entire castle in smoke!"
With no response I pulled from the door and back to Time Turner. "We got to get out of this stupid hallway maze, got any ideas?"
"Besides going through those doors, not really," she pondered.
"Maybe that's the problem, the doors," I wondered, trying to find another way out and seeing a sag in the ceiling. Without warning Time Turner, I wound up the staff and struck the sag, making a portion of the ceiling open up.
"Hey, look! It's a dining room!" I cheered, going back down to Time Turner. "That should be the third floor... right?"
"Honestly, it could be, or it couldn't," Time Turner answered. "Discord can do anything, even change the rooms themselves to what he wants. This entire maze could just be one endless loop of madness and we'll never know."
"Then, let's get crazy," I grinned, lifting Time Turner on my back and pushing her up through the hole and then following suit.
***
"Celestia," a scout yelled out, rushing back to the approaching leader of Equestria's army. "The castle has already gone under attack. It's possible that Nightmare Moon has already infiltrated the building!"
Celestia continued her proud march with her guards and the Elements of Harmony. "Then we will greet her as she greets Discord at his throne, soldiers, charge forward!"