//------------------------------//
// All Hope For Equestria 
// Story: United Nations of Pegasi 
// by Scourgeous 
//------------------------------//

Derpy stretched her legs out at awkward angles, pain jolting through her tendons as she moved. Wincing, she pulled her limbs back in and tucked them against her stomach. The ground beneath her was hard and rough. She stirred, lifting her head groggily and licking around the inside of her dry mouth.

The landscape was musky and brown, the hills swept clean of nature. The rolling hills were vaguely familiar, but without the sheet of snow and greenery of before, it looked uncomfortably bare. Derpy blinked her tired eyes and looked around. She couldn't see any of the ponies she had been with. Behind her, the cottage was in pieces on the ground. The walls had caved in, and bits of mangled wood were scattered around like debris.

"Luna?" she said, putting her legs out in front of herself and standing up. 

Nothing but empty silence. She flicked her ears and looked around, frowning with concern. Where was everypony? What exactly had happened when Celestia had used her spell on Luna? Derpy stared down at her neck, taking a ragged breath as she stared at where her necklace had once been. Where it had gone, she hadn't a clue. One minute it was there, the next it was gone. 

A deep crack was carved into the earth, coming straight from somewhere in the distance and stretching right across the hills. It created a fissure that was many meters across. It was an impossible jump for a unicorn or Earth pony. Derpy trotted closer and closer to the crumbling edge, until she was staring across and down into the darkness. It seemed to go on forever, an abyss scored deep into the heart of Equestria. 

She wiggled her haunches and went to stretch her wings, but something felt strange. The muscles she wanted to flex and contract in the usual motion of flapping her wings was nothing but her mind tensing her back muscles. She whipped around, her one uncovered eye glaring at her flat smooth spine. 

"My wings!" she shrieked to the open sky. 

Without her flight, Derpy was trapped on one side of the abyss. She growled and stomped her hooves, looking around desperately for signs of life. A small moan of anger escaped her, and she bit down hard to stop herself from yelling.

"Derpy Hooves," a smooth voice called to her, gentle and slow, "It happened to you to."

The gray mare turned around quickly and blinked up at the tall white pony heading towards her. It was Princess Celestia, but she had no horn or wings, making her look rather different. She smiled as Derpy bowed to her, but shook her head gently.

"This is no time for Royal etiquette. Equestria is in danger."

Derpy tensed, and she stared up at Celestia, warmth gathering under her eyepatch and making her fur sweat. "Where is Luna?" she ventured. 

"My sister's heart was overcome by a great power. A power strong enough to remove my wings and horn, as well as yours, and every other pony I have encountered."

"You mean the others are safe?" Derpy let herself breathe a sigh of relief. "That's all that counts right now. Nopony got hurt."

Celestia's eyes looked unsure, and she stared down at Derpy as if she was mentally battling something. "Discord is behind all of this. I called Luna to my aid when the creation of the new element released him from his stone state. Unfortunately, he overtook her mind and sent her right back to try and convince you that you were also unloved, but that did not work. Luna was weak to his mind games. You had the love of Dinky by your side, and with that, you were protected."

Warmth flared right through Derpy, and she grinned, eye sparkling. "Dinky! Did you see her? Is she okay?"

The emotion Celestia had been struggling to hide broke though, and she was washed over with a look of distress. "I'm sorry, Derpy Hooves. Discord is too strong. His power over Luna forced me to send her to the one place I was familiar sending her to. As for Dinky... he took her because she was the source of your power."

Derpy stared at the Princess for a long time, shocked, angry, scared, and overall powerless. Without Dinky the hope she had prospered had slipped away. That was what Discord wanted. But the news about Luna was even worse. There was only one place the previous Princess could have been sent to protect Equestria. The moon.

"We can get through this," Celestia soothed, "Follow me back to the others, and I can explain to you what happened to Equestria."

After a moment of hesitation, Derpy nodded and stepped in beside her Princess, comforted by the hopeful tone she had used. The fate of Equestria wasn't quite lost. They still had each other, but it would take the strength from all of their hearts to save their loved ones.

"So we're only missing Luna and Dinky?" Derpy inquired as they walked quietly across the flattened grass. 

Celestia nodded, eyes grave. "Luckily, yes. Everyone else found their way back eventually."

"So no-one was on the other side of the crack..." 

"That side is Discord's side. Last time he created a type of chaos that was simply annoying and hard to live with. Considering that failed, he took on a darker approach of creating a blacker sort of chaos. It's not the sort of environment that is only hard to live in, it's the kind that you can't live in. That is why we must bring things back to normal before somepony gets hurt."

So this isn't as simple as the first time. Derpy conjured, glancing at Celestia once, then back at the track ahead. She could see a few shapes at the edge of the dead trees, stripped of their leaves, their life. The ground was all bare or coated in flattened, dead grass. The sky was stone gray, and the air was warm and stifling. 

"What about the Elements of Harmony?" Derpy said, tapping the crystal on her armor that had once been covered by her necklace.

Celestia closed her eyes for a moment, pausing in her tracks. "They were all taken along with Dinky. The only one that remains is very far away."

Derpy tipped her head on the side, blinking her uncovered eye. "How far away?"

"The moon."