The Equichronicus

by InkBlotBolivar

Chapter 3

Beneath Harmony’s Vigilance

The nation of Equestria was not a nation without problems.

After the founding of Equestria, nearly two-thousand years ago, things were far from calm in the centuries to follow. As all ponies know, the continued loss of Luna’s sanity as well as her lust for power and revenge led her to become the monster known as Nightmare Moon and was subsequently banished by her sister in order to prevent a full scale rebellion.

With the loss of her sister to madness, Celestia feared that she may too fall to a similar force. To keep this from occurring, Celestia imbued six treasures with the powers of the elements of law, and named each after the sacred virtues that made up her element: integrity, kindness, hope, generosity, devotion, and magic.

Whenever the need arose, or Equestria found itself in danger, six special friends would arise to the virtues of the elements, present themselves to the princess, and help her maintain the peace of Equestria. And when a wielder of the elements of harmony truly understood the virtues of friendship and law, they would be uplifted with help of the princess into a higher state of being. Those ponies would be remade in the image of the princess, serving their friends and the ponies of Equestria at her side.

Through the guidance of the princess and the powers of the Elements of Harmony, in spite of conflicts and evil that eventually arose, the nation of Equestria never knew war. However, it is often said that the start of a forest fire is not the first match, but the earth itself.

In the eve of summer, many centuries later, a very familiar disturbance began to shake at its once harmonious foundations. The inhabitants, including the newest wielders of the Elements of Harmony, began to see strange and chaotic occurrences throughout Equestria; from clouds of cotton candy raining chocolate milk to fields of corn suddenly popping into popcorn.

After delegating with Princess Celestia, they determined that these chaotic happenings could only be the fault of Discord, the once sealed element of chaos. When they found him, each of the wielders fell to the corrupting influence of Discord, who then began to cast his power of chaos over Ponyville, literally, turning it upside down.

However, the last of the wielders, a unicorn name Twilight Sparkle, defied the will of Discord and helped to regain the memories of her friends, returning their powers of the elements of harmony. They confronted Discord with their combined strengths, and sealed him back to his statue. While praised by the Princess Celestia in having defeated the element of chaos, in the mind of her sister, heavy worry began to set in.

Luna, having been once obsessed with the death of Discord for so long, had not been fooled for a minute into thinking that the thing that practically toyed with Ponyville had been the same ruinous monster they faced so long ago. After the wielders’ celebrations, Luna met with Celestia in the throne room of Canterlot.

“Evening sister,” Luna spoke, “I trust you share my unease about this past disturbance?”

“I know that you’re worried, I am too,” replied Celestia, “but for the moment the issue has been resolved, and we will do nothing else until we know more.”

“You know as much as I that the thing that attacked Ponyville was not Discord,” Luna retorted fiercely, “nothing has been resolved.”

Celestia sighed, “Do not think for second that I have forgotten about his power sister, the description that Twilight gave me was something that fit everything we knew of Discord, but she failed to mention what kind of statue he was in.” “No one has reported seeing his obsidian prison, so we can only assume that he is still underground, trapped beneath the mantle of the planet,” Celestia finished.

“And that is what troubles me sister,” Luna responded, worriedly, “what was that thing that attacked Ponyville?”

“I do not know,” it was now Celestia’s turn to sound worried, “but I trust that whatever I say to you will not stop you from attempting to find out.” Luna looked down, Celestia knew what she was about to do.

“I cannot join you sister,” spoke Celestia as she looked to the new stained glass window, depicting the triumph of Twilight and her friends, “I need to remain here to keep Equestria under control in case something else occurs, I’m sorry.”

Luna looked at her sister with a gaze of understanding, but spoke nothing as she left the throne room. She knew that her search could takes weeks, even months to yield any results, but she had to drown her doubts about this ordeal. As Luna flew from Canterlot, she wondered how Celestia’s new student would fare; should her greatest fears be realized.

What were days became weeks, and those weeks turned to months in Luna’s search for answers. She knew that Discord’s power could be traced from the residue of the stone in the statue he came from, she just needed someone to lead her to it. Having nearly run out of leads and ponies to help her, Luna turned her attention to an unlikely ally in the Everfree Forest.

The Everfree Forest hid many secrets from those that sought to find their way through its maze of trees and shrubs; just like those secrets, there were often those that did not wish to be found either. Luna remembered a zebra, who was said to live in the most remote part of the sea of trees, that practiced witchcraft and other forms of foreign and strange magic; if anyone knew about the unexplainable, it was her.

After many hours of searching, and retracing her steps, Luna arrived at the base of an ancient gnarled tree, covered in strange masks and fetishes. Knocking on the door, a rhythmic call to enter greeted Luna’s ears and she stepped inside.

“What ails somepony so high above,” trailed the voice of Zecora as she arranged some shelves, “that she meets myself in this alcove?”

“It has been a while, but I unfortunately have no time to reminisce,” spoke in a hurried tone Luna, “I have come for aid in a time of doubt, and I would be honored if you could help me.” From the ruffles of her wings, Luna produced a chip of stone broken off from Discord’s statue and gave it to Zecora.

“Great evil lies so compact in stone,” spoke Zecora, inspecting the chip, “I fear what we find may be felt to your throne.” Zecora grabbed a few flasks from her shelves, dipped their contents within a black cauldron in room, and began to mix the contents with a long staff.

“I am not afraid of what we may see,” spoke Luna in a stalwart tone, “I have seen and done far worse.”

“While answers shall come, darkest of alicorns,” spoke Zecora in a muffled tone as she continued to mix, “you must not just see a rose, and neglect its thorns.” As Zecora finished, the cauldron’s contents turned into a waterlike mirror, reflecting their images. Zecora threw the stone chip into the brew and began an incantation to look for the source of its power.
Luna stared in wonder at the cauldron’s liquid as Zecora continued her strange chant, and began to see an image of a familiar place. Finishing her incantation, Zecora spoke in a worried tone looking into the cauldron, “Fire and horror await you where you go, see what you must fast and not slow.” Thanking the zebra for her sage advice, Luna departed from Everfree and towards a place she thought she would never revisit.

Through the rugged mountaintops and frigid peaks, Luna traveled for days to reach her destination at the end Equestria.The fiery mountain remained a scar in the land of Equestria, a reminder of the corruption that once overtook the planet. The ominous volcano had been the home to so many foul beings, creatures that were corrupted to chaos the instant that they approached the wasteland base of the fiery mountain. A week since leaving Canterlot, Luna found herself at the summit of the place Zecora’s brew had shown her.

As she stared into the maw of the volcano, she had a flashback of her near death at the hands of Discord, how he had held her in his grip and detonated a blast of chaos on her neck. She remembered the fight that nearly cost her and her sister their lives as she descended to the caldera, and how only through Discord’s own hubris that their victory had been achieved. When she landed atop the fused obsidian and sulfur, she felt something else nearby. Bracing herself for whatever would soon encroach her, Luna waited for anything to dare make an attack.

“Hello sister,” spoke a phantasmal voice, dangerously close to her ear, “I thought you had forgotten about me, you never wrote.”

Luna turned to see a familiar, yet ethereal, face right next to her own. She did not pull away, but instead spoke back in a disgusted tone, “I wish I could forget you, I wish we both could, but even after all of these years your filth continues to taint our land.”

Discord laughed, a mocking laugh, and responded, “You were always much more rude than Celestia; no tact at all when it comes to negotiation.”

Luna’s eyes and horn glowed with dark energy as she responded to Discord’s retort, venom seeping in from her words, “There is nothing to negotiate with you, now tell me from the beginning: how are you able to be here, when for so many years ago my sister never even felt your presence?”

Discord laughed again, “As I stated before, no tact at all, but since I’ve nothing else to do today, I will humor your request.” Discord cleared his non-existent throat and told Luna of what occurred.

He told Luna of the horrors he endured, being trapped beneath the crust of the world; trapped between the pressure, magma, and the sealing obsidian glass that coated his body, unable to move and unable to die. Discord then told her of a rumble, an earthquake of sorts that had dislodged his prison from the earth, and into a vein of magma. He told her after an amount of time he did not even care to count, he had arrived at what he assumed to be the planet’s core.

He would have died beneath the pressure and magma, but the obsidian that imprisoned him had dissolved to the point that Discord’s powers were not as restricted. Discord told her of his rage, of being within an arm’s reach of corrupting the entire planet, but unable to do so due to his imprisonment and restriction of his powers. So quietly, Discord plotted within the center of the world, waiting for his chance to return.

‘Cairne…’ Luna thought, now lucid at what happened, ‘I’m so sorry, but your struggle may have been in vain…’

Luna pushed the thought aside and returned her attention to Discord. Discord then told her, that he found out that small pulses of chaotic energy would eventually free him from his prison, and push his body out the core, but it would take a long time. As he resonated his power throughout the two thousand years of his imprisonment, he felt his waves of chaos having adverse effects on the planet. Though he could not witness these events unfold, nor see what happened afterwards, he smiled inwardly at the pandemonium that must be occurring in the world above. He would be free, and the world above would be his to corrupt once again.

Discord let out an amused laugh at the expression Luna gave him as he finished his story. Luna’s face was in disbelief at what she had just heard. “Wait,” Luna remarked, “the Discord that appeared in Ponyville, was just one of your apparitions?”

“Excellent deduction my dear Luna,” spoke Discord in a mocking tone, “do not worry though, my powers are yet at their zenith, so you and Celestia still have many months to prepare a welcome back party for me, or at least until the next time the vein beneath the volcano blows; in the meantime however, I think I hear the sounds of a thousand bees now approaching Canterlot.”

Luna left the volcano before she could ask anything else, as she now felt the presence of a thousand fluttering wings in the winds of Equestria, and they each carried a spark of that same corrupted power that emanated from Discord.

As Luna flew back to Canterlot, at speeds she did not even knew she could achieve, she thought to herself, ‘I was a fool to let my sister spare his life, and now all of Equestria may suffer for our mistakes.’ With a threat having been made against Canterlot, Luna would need to retread her arduous journey and warn her sister of the threat before the changeling beat her to it.

For it would be in the eve of a royal wedding, that the first of many embers to follow would be lit.

Author's Note:

Plot setup, plot setup, you've all seen it before. I have to say, I had never written so many drafts of a single piece of writing before this chapter. Anyways, the next chapter will be the point in the story where this will completely deviate from the show. Time allowing I will attempt to get an extra editor so that these chapters can be uploaded faster. As always, comment and criticize as you wish since it helps me to better my writing, and keep checking out Yudhaikeledai's page for updates on the project and awesome artwork.