Chapter 288 - Trial 2: The Impossible Shell Game
“Now, we just put this back here, and with my patented yet simple glue from my talon, it should be as good as new. There!” Discord said with a grin as he stuck your head onto your body. You expected him to put it upside down as a joke, but he didn’t, he seemed to understand the direness of the situation. It felt kinda warm though.
“Wow, Mister Discord, you made Hero Colt Anon look just like he was before! I mean, well, right before.” Silverstream said in amazement. “And his head isn’t wobbling at all! What kind of glue is that?”
“Well, to be truthful, it is a patent pending. It’s just a little sticky and warm goo that comes deep from within, that’s all.” Discord said as he shook off the rest of the glue from his talon.
Sticky and warm goo?! He wouldn’t! “A-are you serious?! Please tell me it isn’t ‘that’ kind of goo!”
“What kind of goo?” Silverstream asked.
“What kind of goo indeed.” Discord said as he gave you a sneaky grin.
“Don’t play around with me, ‘Dad’! I know you’re not even PG rated enough to do something like that!” You said with a growl, feeling disgusted deep within.
“PG rated? Is that some kind of code rating for glue?” Silverstream asked Discord.
“Why, yes it is! But mine just happens to be R rated. Restricted for only those who are most deserving. Isn’t that right, Anon?” Discord said, his grin growing wider. “I mean, it works, doesn’t it? No need to cause a fuss within this cramped elevator, right?”
Chrysalis actually was snickering, you could hear her. However, of course, Neighsay didn’t find any of this amusing. “Yes, we can see it works. Considering now is not the time for any of these questions nor, from what I can surmise, jokes, we need more information from you, Discord. I understand now Tirek cannot manipulate these trials further, what we encounter will be what we get. But how far can his treachery go? Can he make these trials impossible to pass in any way?”
“Depends, he certainly could, as that would just simply be referred to as a trap. However, now that I am so close to the source of his power, that being one half my own power, I can tell you without a doubt that Tirek has something to prove. We merely must complete these trials, recover the staff, and everything else will fall into place. I can sense the staff is at its limit, Tirek isn’t that much of a fool, he won’t use it further.” Discord said.
“What about his threat about cheating his trials? Would he follow through with that?” Tempest asked.
Discord shrugged “Who can tell? I’ve never known him to do something like that. But then again, I didn’t expect him to ally himself with a filly. Again, copying his superior for no reason other than jealousy that I pulled it off so well. But I digress, I believe it’s best to play by his rules for now. If only because seeing his face when we still win will be oh so great.”
Suddenly, the speakers within the elevator began to blare with Tirek’s voice. “I wouldn’t speak of your victory so soon, Discord. That was merely the first trial.”
“Ah, there he is. Look, Tirek, I don’t want to hear your usual nonsense this time. I know you’re just dying to tell us about your next trial and how we have no hope to pass it.” Chrysalis said with nary a care for Tirek’s disposition.
“You act as if that is my intent.” Tirek said.
“You’d be fooling yourself if it wasn’t. If these trials were as easy as you previously described, then you wouldn’t have made that trick right from the get go.” Chrysalis began to snicker. “What? Not enough power in your little staff for a real game changer?”
“Hmph, believe what you wish to believe.” Tirek said, sounding a little less dismissive than he should for the moment.
“Well, I believe I kicked your trial’s butt! C’mon, don’t you have any harder ones?! I was totally a better villain than you were! I was gonna master time travel, y’know?” Starlight said, ever so bold due to that curse. A curse you hope didn’t become a detriment at some point.
“Yes, Tirek, did you hear that? Time travel. Now be a dear and just explain your next trial so we can also pass it with ease.” Chrysalis said, arrogant as ever.
Tirek was silent for a moment, but he retained his calm demeanor as he spoke. “Very well. The next trial should be a simple one. So simple even a foal should be able to complete it. All you need to do is follow the cup with the acorn in it. Simple to understand, don’t you think? My only rule is not to touch anything. If you wish to give me the solution to which cup holds the acorn, you merely just need to speak it as your final answer.”
“Surely you’re joking! A shell game? That’s it?! And what’s to stop you from moving the acorn without us being able to move the cup ourselves?! You can just lie and doom us all!” Neighsay shouted.
“Well, if you do it your way and touch any of my cups, then you doom yourself anyway. So, from where I’m standing, you either do as I say or just forfeit where you stand.” Tirek said as the elevator came to a stop. “It’s your choice. Good luck!” And with that, Tirek stopped speaking.
“Why that..!” Neighsay said with a growl before looking towards Discord. “Be truthful with me…” Neighsay paused. He almost said something to insult Discord again, but held back, just choosing to address him by name to avoid any needless pushback from him.”...Discord. Is there any way he can cheat us? Are you certain he can’t?”
Discord just stepped out of the elevator, paying little mind to Neighsay himself as he answered his question. “As I said, he can’t manipulate what he has already set. If there’s a trick to the trial, we’ll just have to figure it out. But this one should be easy, it’s just following a cup with an acorn after all.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure on that. The shell game can be pretty rough even if done legit. If you know your mark, you can always shuffle the cups in a way to make them guess wrong every time.” Gallus remarked.
“How do you know that, Gallus?” Sandbar asked.
“I’m a griffon, remember? You gotta know these things if you’re gonna survive in Griffonstone” Gallus replied as he stepped forward with the rest of the group.
And this trial room? Very simple in design, the floor had a carpet centered on the floor that led to the glass floor, or rather, what seemed to be a mirrored floor. However, there was only one golden cup in the center of the mirrored floor. Why one? “Uhhh, is that it? One cup? Where are the other two?”
“I don’t know. Oh! Perhaps the trick is that they are invisible!” Ocellus said, smiling at the realization before her mood suddenly came crashing down. “Which means we have no real way of knowing which cup even has the acorn. Shouldn’t we be able to see it before anything else?”
“Nah, I don’t think they’re invisible, it’d make it impossible to even say which cup we wanna pick. I betcha that’s the cup that has the acorn. Now, if I was a sneaky little weasel like Tirek, I’d just have a load of other cups suddenly come down and just start shuffling at super quick speeds.” Suddenly, as Grubber said that, forty nine more cups came down, and immediately began to shuffle at breakneck speeds. “U-uh, e-er… Um, kinda like that.”
Before anyone could even say anything, or even figure out what was going on, the cups stopped.
“Tirek! Grrr, he did that on purpose! Grawr!” Chrysalis said in a rage before looking towards you. “Anon, surely you saw what the correct cup was!”
D-dammit, it caught you off guard, there was no way you could be prepared for it. “N-no, I… Dammit, I didn’t catch it at all. Tempest, what about you? You managed to follow it, right?”
Tempest shook her head with a sorrowful frown. “I can’t say that I did. I should have known someone like Tirek would have made a move like that. What about you, Discord? Did you manage to catch it?”
“Huh, what? Hm? What now?” Discord said as he plucked a piece of candy from his eye and popped it in his mouth.
You suddenly exploded at him, pointing at him in rage. “Are you telling me that you, of all creatures, didn’t pay attention to which cup had the acorn?!”
“What now?” Discord said as he took a glance over at the cups. “Oh, yes, that.” Discord then looked at you with a cordial smile. “Nope.”
Your body twitched in a rage as you jumped up and attempted to choke Discord. “You motherfucker! How are you not taking this seriously when FluttersGYAH!” You were blown back into the wall as Discord exploded in your hooves. “U-ugh..”
“Well, if we’re done with the games. I think I actually have the solution to this.” Neighsay said.
“Hm? Well then, seems you are good for something. So, which cup is it then?” Chrysalis asked, seemingly impressed with Neighsay’s apparent observation.
“None. It’s obvious Tirek wants us to make some kind of guess only to reveal that the acorn is under none of the cups. Why else would he not give us a chance to even see it?” Neighsay said, a self satisfied grin on his face for his impressive answer.
“No” Both you and Chrysalis said at the same time.
“No? How can you say ‘no’? Tirek is a liar and a cheat, just like with that room with the tripwires. That is obviously the trick to this room.” Neighsay argued.
“Except he’s also not an idiot, at least not as much as we'd hope to expect. It’s much too obvious an answer.” Chrysalis said.
“Yeah, there's the acorn alright, it’s just a matter of figuring out which cup has it. There has to be a trick to it. We know the cup that was already there had to have the acorn, since it wasn’t anywhere else on the glass. But which one is it? We only got a two percent chance of picking the right one.” You said as you neared the glass floor, staring at the cups. You then looked back at Tempest. “Tempest, do you have any ideas?”
Tempest, sadly, shook her head. “Other than using my horn to try to blast all the cups at once, nothing. And no doubt it’d just count as a loss on our side anyway.”
Grubber started to rub under his chin as he stared at the cups. “There’s gotta be somethin’.”
Starlight just rolled her eyes and laid down on the floor. “Screw this, I’m relaxing on this carpet until somepony comes up with something. And that’s right, I said screw! Screw this whole thing, it’s getting boring!”
Geez, she’s getting worse. The only thing you can hope for is she instantly blasts Tirek, during the eventual final confrontation, into nothing before he can act.
Meanwhile, the young six were doing their own investigation among themselves. Well, mostly. Silverstream had separated from the group to walk up towards the mirrored floor, and began to stare down upon it. It caught Gallus’s eye, and he went up next to her to ask what she was doing. “Hey, Silverstream, be careful. We lose if you touch the glass. you know?”
“Yeah, I know. But isn’t it weird?” Silverstream said as she looked down at the mirrored floor from the carpeted part, almost like she was in a trance.
“Weird? What’s so weird about it? It’s a mirror. Besides, I know which cup it is anyway, just trying to figure out what the trick is before I call it out. Could be a trap.” Gallus said as he looked down upon the floor. “Like, I don’t see anything at all.”
“Well, that’s the thing, don't our reflections look all ghosty?” Silverstream said as she waved towards herself.
“Ghosty?” Gallus asked, confused.
“Yeah, like you can see right through them, see?” Silverstream said as she pointed downwards. “You’d think we’d be able to see through the cups too. Weird, right?”
“What?!” Gallus looked harder, narrowing his eyes. And that's when he saw it, the trick to the whole thing. “Woah, Silverstream, you’re a genius.”
“I am? Because I noticed the weird reflections?” Silverstream asked, confused, before giggling. “Are you messing with me?”
“No, just stay here. I think I got this one.” Gallus said as he flew towards and above the center of the glass floor, and pointed towards the tenth cup in the second row. “Yo, Tirek! I’m picking this cup!”
Gallus’s cry caught the attention of everyone. Chrysalis immediately flew into a rage as she called out towards the griffon. “Idiot! What are you doing?!”
“Gallus! What the hay!? What up?! You can't just call things out without talking to us first!” Smolder called out to him, astonished at his call out.
…
…
…Did he figure it out? Normally, you may have gotten surprised like the others, but Yona was able to figure out the tripwire room with ease. None of you had any ideas. So if Gallus had one, then maybe, just maybe, he had good justification to do what he was doing now. “Gallus, did you figure it out?”
Gallus nodded towards you. “I did. Well, Silverstream did. But I know which cup has the acorn thanks to her. Just trust me on this one, I figured out the trick.”
“He can’t be serious. What happened with the yak was a fluke. If we can’t figure it out, then how can we expect to leave things to him?” Neighsay said as he looked to the rest of you. “We need to stop him.”
“No, let him try. We don’t even know if there is a time limit to this. We were most likely doomed by not acting. So it is either this, or nothing.” Tempest said as he stared hard at Neighsay. She then looked over at you with a softer look. “What do you think, Anon? Do you think it's part of that prophecy you dreamed of?”
You nodded. “It has to be, otherwise we’re fucked.”
Gallus yelled as he pointed again. “Hey! I said it was that cup, right over there! Didn’t you hear me?”
Suddenly, a dark chuckle filled the room. “Oh, I heard you.” A panel above the next elevator flipped around, revealing a tv screen, Tirek’s stupid mug appearing as it turned on. “I was just savoring the moment. So, you’re all leaving the decision to this griffon? Very well. Tell me, are you aware you only get one chance at this? Consider my warning a generous word of caution, as you may want to think harder.”
“You heard me, dog breath. I’m pointing at the right cup!” Gallus said, pointing towards the cup again.
The cup began to glow, Tirek’s disposition becoming more stoic as he asked “Is that your final answer then?”
Gallus looked down at the glowing cup. “Not that one! The one below it!”
Wut?
No, wut? Everyone was confused.
But then, more importantly, Tirek looked annoyed.
“The one below it? Surely you jest, griffon. Are you aware the floor is a mirror?” Tirek said to him.
“Nice try, pal. And the name is Gallus! And if you knew anything about griffons, then you’d know we rule the shell game. We know how to rig it any way we want. And if you were half as good as we were, you would have made things a little less obvious.” Gallus said as he pointed towards the screen with a smirk. “I pick the cup under it, final answer.”
Tirek suddenly growled as he slammed his hands down. “How?! How did you figure it out?!” He shouted as the cup under the glass floor began to glow, and drop down, revealing the acorn clinging to the glass from underneath. With that, all the cups disappeared as the elevator began to open.
“C’mon, really? Do I have to spell it out for you? I’m a griffon. Have you never been to Griffonstone before? You can’t do this kinda stuff there unless you’re a master at it. The moment we stepped into this place, I figured out what was going on and followed that cup. Only thing then was to figure out your really lame trick. So, I gotta ask, why don’t you just give up? Because, seriously? This is really embarrassing. For you, I mean.” Gallus said, before laughing at him. “Seriously, our old folks are worse than you are!”
“You impudent little…! GRRR!” Tirek punched towards the screen, causing the image to turn to white static.
“Well, well, I’m not one to admit things like this, but I stand corrected in my assumption.” Chrysalis said, before smirking and giving a girlish shrug as she walked over to the elevator. “But I get it. Just like those meddlesome elements ruined the plans of villains before them, these elements are destined to do the same. Alright, I’m convinced, I’ll just leave it to them. I just want everycreature to remember that in the end, those two are mine.”
“Awww, man. Are you telling me Tempest ain’t gonna get a chance to beat any of these things? What a rip!” Grubber said as he kicked the ground.
“It’s fine, Grubber. As Chrysalis said, it looks like they’re destined to beat these trials. It looks like there’s nothing to worry about. Wouldn’t you say, Chancellor?” Tempest said as she gave a sneaky smirk towards him.
Neighsay gave her a grumpy look, then sighed as he looked down, closing his eyes. “...Fine, perhaps my biases are, or have been, a little more than just mere biases. Even I have to admit that we’d have been doomed without these students. I was wrong to reject the notion of bringing them along.” Neighsay then slowly looked at them, then towards the elevator. “If they truly are the new elements of harmony… No, even being students, bright stars to a better future, I will act as their protector an-Hey!” Neighsay suddenly got pushed aside as Starlight headed towards the elevator. Tempest and Grubber following after.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re having your ‘heel-turn' moment. Save it for when we’re done, gramps.” Starlight said.
“Gramps? Now see here…” Neighsay began to follow her, complaining at her as to why she was wrong and how prestigious and important his position was.
You just stared at the young six, they were celebrating, congratulating Gallus for a job well done. It made you smile, and you didn’t know why. Discord stepped up next to you, giving you a gentle pat along your one ear. “Let me guess, happy to know that they’re good friends, and are on their way to being completely accepted?”
“Yeah, I-Wait, Discord? Huh, already back from exploding again, huh?” You said as you looked up at him. “Not going to be an ass this time?”
“I suppose not, especially since we’re close to saving her… And the rest, I guess. To tell you the truth, I’m feeling a little disappointed when it comes to one aspect of this little adventure.” Discord said sorrowfully.
Hm? “What? What is it?”
“I was actually hoping you’d get to strike down Tirek. That way you become, I don’t know, the super hero colt or something like that. Imagine how much I’d be able to lord over Twilight that my son saved Equestria.” Discord said with a little chuckle.
“...But she knows I’m not your son, remember?” You said, looking up at Discord, confused.
Discord suddenly looked down at you, arms on his sides, with a frustrated look. “You just had to go and immediately shatter my dreams, didn’t you?”
You shrugged, grinning at him. “Well, you know. Anyway, thanks for believing in me, I guess. C’mon, let’s just go save Fl-”
“Ahhh! Don’t say her name!” Discord said as he clamped your mouth shut.
“S-sorry… C’mon, we’re nearly there. Are you ready to do this?” You said as you raised your hoof towards him.
Discord looks down at your hoof. He grinned, and reached down to give it a fist bump. “Let’s do it, chaos buddy!”
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2 down 4 to go
Even Discord forgets what happened in the story.
Reminds me of how I pointed out - at the end of book 1 - that Flutters knew that Anon wasn't originally a pony.
I hope you use someone saying Flutttershy's name as an escape tool for a captured Discord.
PG-rated (?)
Uppercase ‘y’ should be lowercase. (?)
Missing comma before ‘after all’. (?)
Missing comma or period.
self-satisfied
Missing period.
Uppercase ‘b’ should be lowercase. (?)
two-percent
Uppercase ‘y’ should be lowercase. (?)
The period should be a comma.
call-out (?)
"It has to be. Otherwise, we're fucked."
Missing comma before ‘then’. (?)
Uppercase ‘y’ should be lowercase. (?)
I may be wrong about some of the above.
I did not expect 2 weeks to have already passed in my procrastination. Jeetje...
Now I’m going to cry in a corner
pull the carpet!
11760980
nope, I’m being an idiot. he said not to... touch... anything.... would that include your atoms. the ground... what are the limitations?!?!
Dues ex machina!