Labyrinth
“Twi, are ya sure about this?” Applejack asked, unsure as the group approached the tall, looming green walls of the Canterlot Castle garden maze.
Twilight nodded confidently. “I am. Discord said ‘twists and turns,’ and the only place close enough for that to make sense is the garden maze.” she explained simply before eyeing the entranceway to the maze itself with a degree of scrutiny and skepticism.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Pinkie chirped excitedly before pronking toward the entrance.
“Woah, Pinks!” Rainbow interrupted her while sweeping forward to block her path. “Let’s not go in blind. I’ll do a quick fly over and bring the elements back if I find them.”
A chill breeze passed over the group, making the leaves rustle. “Oh, about that…” came the snide voice of Discord, carried by the winds.
“Wha-?!” Rainbow yelped out in alarm when there were two bright flashes of light at her sides. She grunted in discomfort when, without any input on her part, her wings stopped flapping and she fell to the ground. She shook her head to clear it of the surprise she was feeling before glancing to where the flashes of light had come from.
Her wings were gone.
“MY WINGS!” Rainbow shrieked, standing up and reaching a forehoof to each of her sides in a panic, trying to see if they had only turned invisible. No such luck. Her wings were well and truly gone. Fluttershy cried out in similar distress when her wings, too, vanished from her sides without a trace.
“Your horn! My horn! AAAH!” Rarity and Twilight spoke in unison when they discovered that their horns, much like Rainbow and Fluttershy’s wings, had vanished from their bodies.
“Much better...” Discord chortled in amusement. Some few yards away, the air rippled and shimmered. A ball of magical energy appeared at the center of the disturbance before erupting in a brilliant flash. For several seconds, this light persisted before gradually fading away. There, smiling down on the trembling group of friends with a sadistic and jovial grin, with Discord himself, in the flesh. He towered over the group, easily three times taller than any of them. “Oh, look at your faces!” he laughed hysterically, cupping his elongated chin with his hands to push up on his cheeks. “PRICELESS!”
“Give us our wings and horns back!” Twilight snapped, stomping on the ground seriously. Nopony missed the shaking in her voice, however. Discord smiled down at her, his laughter swiftly dying away to be replaced by a smug smile.
“In due time. I’ve simply taken them for a while to ensure that there is no cheating,” he said before his long body slithered past Twilight to tap Rarity on the nose.
“Cheating?” Rainbow demanded with a scowl. Had she still had wings, she would have been spreading them out aggressively.
“Well, yes. You see, this is the first rule of our game. No flying, and no magic..” as he spoke, Discord turned a playful and taunting eye on Twilight before running his eagle claw under her chin. “The second rule is that everypony plays or the game is over and I win.”
In a flash, he vanished, leaving nothing but a soft breeze and his laughter echoing in his wake. For several moments, nopony moved. Then, Twilight put on a small, reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, girls. We can do this as long as we stick together.”
“Roger that,” Rainbow nodded along, her cocky smirk returning in full force. “Let’s go!”
As one, the group approached the entrance of the maze. Nodding to each other to assure themselves that they were all ready, they stepped forward.
Immediately, the ground jolted beneath them. Alarmed shouts and cries escaped from each of them as tall walls made of branches and leaves rose from the ground, separating every member of the group from the rest. “Everypony stay calm!” Twilight cried out from her path. Gradually, everypony’s alarmed and panicked cries died down. “Stay focused and head for the center. We can regroup there!”
“On it! Good luck, you guys!” Rainbow called before turning to face her path. It went straight ahead before turning right. Taking a deep breath and focusing, Rainbow broke into a gallop down the path, eager to find her friends and her element of harmony.
She didn’t spot the draconequus floating above and behind her with a curious expression on his face. This expression soon morphed into a large smirk before he vanished in a burst of light.
‘I wish I had a way of checking my progress.’ Rainbow thought impatiently to herself perhaps ten minutes later. She had run through the garden many times before and knew it rather well. At least, she used to. None of it was as she remembered it being, which meant that Discord had messed with it. Every time she could have sworn she was supposed to make a left turn, it would be a dead end or a right turn. Every time she thought an intersection would be coming up, she was disappointed to find a straight path or a single corner. She had long since lost track of north or south, with the sky being shrouded in dark storm clouds, which had seemingly formed from nothing as soon as they had entered the maze. She couldn’t see the roofs of any of Canterlot’s towering structures, nor could she spot the colossal peak of the mountain the city rested on. It was like the whole world was only this maze.
That thought sent an unpleasant chill down her spine. She didn’t want to wander this labyrinth forever…
“Oh, forget it,” a voice spoke behind her. Rainbow spun around, her teeth showing in a furious snarl. Discord was leaning casually against the wall of the maze, looking at a white cloud that he held in his hand. “I had this whole idea of luring you to me with this thing, but honestly, I’m just too curious to bother with it.” his hand closed itself on the cloud, causing it to poof out of existence.
“Either go away or shut up so I can pummel your teeth out,” Rainbow growled, tensing up, ready to lunge.
“Relax, Rainbow, I’m not here for a fight. I’m just aching to ask you a question, is all.” Discord said defensively, raising his hands up in an effort to placate the offended pegasus.
“I have more than a few questions, but first and foremost is would you kindly BUZZ OFF?!” Rainbow yelled before turning around and resuming her trek through the maze, flicking her tail at Discord as she went.
“Rude,” Discord muttered under his breath before teleporting in front of Rainbow, forcing her to stop. “Listen closely, this is important.”
Rainbow growled in her throat but otherwise didn’t respond.
“...Why haven’t you gone after her?” Discord finally asked with a curious frown.
“Who?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow, about ready to dismiss this conversation and get back to work.
“Well, who else but Starlight Glimmer?”
Rainbow tensed, remembering the lilac unicorn from the day of her race, remembering her from the intense flash she had shared with Twilight in Cloudsdale when they were still only fillies.
Discord noticed Rainbow’s tensing muscles and smiled. “You haven’t forgotten her, I see.”
“How do you know about her?” Rainbow asked cautiously, narrowing her eyes up at him.
“I’m the spirit of chaos, Rainbow Dash. Such an enormous change to the timeline isn’t something I’m just going to miss detecting, you know. The imbalances it created would have put me into a seizure were I not stoned at the time,” Discord explained before lowering himself down to Rainbow’s eye level. “Now, I’m going to ask you again… why haven’t you gone after her, yet?”
“Why would I?” Rainbow asked sharply before shoving past Discord.
Discord looked over his shoulder at Rainbow before once more teleporting to bar her path. “Because of what she did, perhaps?” Discord pressed. “She completely rewrote time from your sonic rainboom and on.”
Rainbow scoffed. “The version of Starlight that did that is gone, Discord. She disappeared alongside the rest of her timeline.”
“Well yes, but…” Discord slithered closer to Rainbow, causing her to reflexively take a step back. She jumped in surprise when her rear collided with a wall that hadn’t been there before. She was trapped. “Starlight still exists here. In this timeline. Aren’t you afraid she’ll make another attempt?”
Rainbow blinked, her ears twitching down slightly. She then shook her head and grit her teeth. “Why would you even care about that? Why are you telling me this?”
Discord leaned back in mock offense. “Why, Rainbow Dash! Are you implying that I don’t want to exist?” he then chuckled and shook his head. “It’s because I rather enjoy having you ponies around for me to play with. If Starlight rewrites history again, it may do so in a way that prevents me from having any fun.”
“Uh huh,” Rainbow snorted before trying to shove by Discord again. He moved to block her, so she held firm. “Look, this conversation has been really nice and all, but I really need to get back to finding my element. Shoo.”
Discord rolled his eyes. “Are you saying you’re not the slightest bit worried about what she’s going to do? You aren’t scared about another rewrite making your life worse?”
“I like to think my life is pretty good, all things considered!” Rainbow growled, a vein bulging in her throat.
“Is that right?” Discord smirked before rising up again. “When you were a filly, both of your parents were lost in an accident that, had time never been rewritten, you could have prevented.”
Rainbow froze, her ears going flat against her head.
“You may ignore my warnings if you want, dear Rainbow, but just know this.” his eyes glowed before he flickered out of existence.
“A weighty choice is yours to make,
The right decision, or a big mistake.
If the wrong path you choose to pursue,
Everything you love will crumble around you.”
Rainbow’s eyes were flooded with white light, and a shocked gasp tore itself from her throat.
She could see the sky shattering bit by bit like glass, it’s pieces being sucked away into a white void beyond. She saw a prismatic ribbon of light be severed at one point, dissolving into nothingness past the divide. She saw Ponyville swirling and fading into dust and multi-colored mist, the ponies within crying out and screaming as they, too, were consumed. Several tried to fly away but were unable to escape the spread of the void. They could not escape the changes.
Rainbow looked to her left and saw Twilight looking up at Canterlot with wide-eyed fear. Following her gaze, Rainbow felt her heart freeze in terror and sorrow at what she saw. Canterlot was already gone, the mountain it resided on, too, being swallowed by the white void, dissolving and disintegrating into nothing.
“No.. NO!”
“NOO!” Rainbow screamed out in desperation, reaching out with her forelegs. They can’t be gone, it can’t end like this!
The vision shattered, leaving her gasping for breath and trembling. A fresh wave of tears began to leak out of her eyes as she desperately tried to contain a heavy sob. She wiped a foreleg across her eyes and looked up to see a box floating in front of her. “This box contains your wings. You can take them, leave the game and make her pay, or you can carry on wandering this maze for the rest of time; however little it may be. Your choice…”
Rainbow eyed the box, her mouth hanging open and her heart pounding hard in her chest. In her mind, she saw Starlight Glimmer, her face twisted into a wicked sneer. She saw her parents, laying on the ground the day she lost them. She remembered the feeling of being pulled away from them in somepony’s magic, kicking, screaming and crying. She felt a spark in the back of her head. It built into an inferno of hatred, anger, and rage, all of it focused on the lilac unicorn whose actions had taken her parents away.
For just a moment, Rainbow’s mind recalled her friends, lost in this maze. She couldn’t leave them… could she?
...Forget ‘em. She thought bitterly before reaching for the box.
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When Discord gets serious about a subject it is time to pay attention, true in any MLP situation. Poor Rainbow though, forced into a situation she didn't want to deal with. Wonder if in his eagerness Discord forgot to nail the others?
Dear author, give Dash a flash right before she get the wings!
8639504
Oh, he already nailed them. :P
Clever bit of manipulation there, Discord.
All I can say is great job on the alteration for Discord's trick concerning Rainbow. And, yeah, Discord DOES, unfortunately, have a point concerning Starlight. Really, Rainbow and Celestia should have convinced Sunburst to get back in touch with her when they had the chance.
Anyway, excellent job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up in all the right places. And, yeah, I'm very definitely going to be looking forward to the next chapter especially since it involves dealing with Starlight two years earlier (in-universe) earlier than canon . But I will also be more than willing to be patient.
Even during the midst of fight, Discord couldn't help himself but to slip an important, but distant, clue to others. Just to be able to say it later "I told you so".
8639649
More like 4 years and yeah they should lookup whatthe current version of Starlight is doing.
Yay! Change.
coming next chapter (give or take):
Hello: my name is Rainbow Dash. You killed my father: prepare to die.
Well, that was totally not forecast by the giant Starlight in the cover art. Nope. Not at all.
8640359
I was never really trying to be subtle when I first conceptualized the cover art.
8639966
Indeed And yeah. I kind of forgot that the author seems to be going for the "one season equals one year" (okay ALMOST one year) deal here. Thanks for the correction.
8640461
because that makes sense. and gives Golden oaks Death more meaning.
8640461
I usually measure it by 'how many winters have come and gone' as a baseline. One season usually adds up to about a year with that mentality.
8640866
Indeed. It DOES make sense. MUCH more sense than the canon show trying to compress three seasons into a single year (as the canon show had been accused of doing since the start of Season Four), in fact. So my statements to that fact were merely observations rather than arguments.
I made a prediction not even expecting it to be right. The timeline change being the catalyst of freeing Discord, Discord being aware of the timeline change, and Discord being the catalyst of the new timeline change. I honestly hope I guessed correctly and not that you got the ideas from me.
Best quote ever.
gasp
8639588
Can I assume how Discord manipulated the others is generally the same as the originals?
8639649
I thought they had convinced him to go see her.
8639966
8640461
Technically, it'd be three years. And that's assuming that one season equals one year, where there's evidence that that's not the case. Two and a half years if you take into consideration that Season 3 was half as long.
8640866
That's generally how I see it too. There's a theory that Season's 1 through 3 are all just one year. But considering that there are two winters, it's a minimum of 1 1/2 years (most likely around 2 years).
8641041
Technically, that is just a fan theory. Nobody on the staff actually said that the first 3 seasons were just one year. Why do fans make accusations when they are the ones making the claims?
8642429
No Four. we just don't see every week or day doesn't mean shorter time.
8642418
I had this pretty much planned before I began writing.
Dun dun dun!
Ooooh shit....
I think you mean "was".
And so the game is finally afoot.
I must admit the earlier chapters were a bit of a slog which could have done being condensed into one, but I'm looking forward to what's coming.