Into the Maze
As they neared the entrance of the maze, the hedges seemed to grow even taller to loom over even Twilight. Seeing that Twilight’s height rivaled Celestia’s that was saying something. Spike’s grip tightened as the group stopped to stand at the threshold. A cool breeze wafted from inside of the maze.
Fluttershy gulped and shakily asked, “Must we really go in there?”
“Flutters,” Rainbow Dash said with a straight face, “Three of us have wings,”
“Oh right,” Fluttershy flushed a little and took to the sky along with Rainbow Dash.
“We’ll search the perimeter first, then go inwards. Spike can be our second pair of eyes. Got it?” Rainbow explained.
Fluttershy and Twilight nodded. Rainbow wasn’t the captain of the weather team for nothing.
Right when Twilight jumped up, a flash of light blinded her. Her wings went from open to shielding. When she stopped seeing stars, screams pierced the air.
“My wings!” Twilight had to do a double-take.
Both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were wingless, their smaller, more delicate frames looking oddly naked without them. They hung in the air cartoonishly long before the both of them plummeted to the ground. Twilight barely managed to catch them, snapping out of her shock.
She dove forward and Rainbow let out a hearty ‘oof’ when she landed on Twilight’s back. Fluttershy squeaked softly when she was snagged by her ridiculously long tail. Rarity shrieked in alarm when another flash zapped her horn away.
The next moment, Pinky, Applejack, and Spike gasped. Pinky tried to jump how she normally did and only managed a mediocre bounce by her standards. Applejack reared up and slammed her forehooves to the ground and Twilight flinched, expecting the ground to crater. Only, nothing happened other than a bit of dust floating away. Spike wriggled around on her shoulders for a while and then stilled when Pinky spoke.
“O-Our magic,” Pinky whimpered, (for once the voice of reason), just loud enough for the rest to hear, “Our magic is gone!”
Just as Twilight set her two friends on the ground, there was the familiar thrum of teleportation and once again, everyone was blinded. Instinctively, Twilight flared her wings and her hackle scales raised. She stepped in front of her defenseless friends and roared a challenge before she could even see.
An evil laugh was cut off by the roar and Discord appeared. His disgruntled face spoke volumes as he peeled off a set of noise-canceling headphones. When the roar faded, Discord let a beat of silence pass before he spoke.
“You completely ruined my villainous entrance! Sacrilege I tell you!” Discord complained to the bemused ponies, “I had the lightning, dark backdrop, and everything ready!”
“Give my friends their magic back,” Twilight snarled, taking a threatening step forward, decidedly ignoring the nonsense.
The draconequus’ window pane didn’t do him justice. For one, one of his bulgy eyes was larger than the other. The solid red irises sent electrifying tingles down Twilight’s spine. His face was vaguely equine but looked more like a windigo than a pony. His face was furless and the furlessness continued mostly down his neck. Uncomfortably, it reminded Twilight of pudding.
His close-cropped mane reminded Twilight of a Zebra’s mane. His horns made Twilight’s own feel itchy just by looking at them. One was an antler of a deer and the other looked like a goat’s horn. An odd tiger tooth poked out of his closed mouth, too large to fit comfortably inside. The only thing that really matched with each other on the creature was the fur that made up his eyebrows and beard.
His body was more interesting. His fur was coarse and thick, creeping partly up his neck. It abruptly stopped at the joints of each new limb. His feet clopped unevenly against the floor whenever he shifted.
The wings on his back physically couldn’t lift a creature of his size, but Twilight knew better than think he couldn’t fly by other means. The reddish scales along his tail were scuffed and dusty.
The magic around the creature was so, for lack of another word, chaotic, that Twilight gave up trying to make sense of it after the first few moments. It was like the very air around him warped and twisted unnaturally from the amount of excess magic he exuded.
Discord magicked on a fencing outfit and backed up dramatically, waving the sword around, “They’ll get it back in due time. I just took them to make sure none of them cheated,”
He reappeared upside-down, back to normal, and stole Applejack’s hat, “That’s the first rule of the game: No flying, or magic. The second rule: Everyone has to play, or the game is over and I win,” He threw the hat like a frisbee and it landed perfectly on Applejack’s head.
Then, he did an evil little hand rub and his tongue flitted out much like Twilights. However, he shrieked very shrilly when Twilight spat her purple fire at him. He reequipped into a fire pony suit and scrambled away as fast as his mismatched legs could take him.
He pulled a hose out of thin air and blasted Twilight in the face with it before speaking over her sputtering, “Temperamental I see. Very well,”
A paw snap later, Twilight had a new iron band around her muzzle and another bigger one encircling her body, pinning her wings to her sides. Her eye twitched dangerously as water slowly dripped from her hair and horns.
Smoke puffed out of her nose in fury and she charged the draconequus. Discord vanished and reappeared a safe distance away as she slipped in the wet grass. She slipped further than physically possible since Discord added a layer of soap to the ground. She skidded all the way until she crashed into part of the hedges.
“Come now Twilight Sparkle, play the game, or else your friends lose their magic,” All the sudds were magically removed with another snap as Twilight hauled herself out of the plants.
More smoke blew out of Twilight’s nose before she indignantly sat down, eyes narrowed at him. Discord suddenly had sunglasses on his face as he dramatically cringed away from the glare. Then a moment later he was back to normal, standing in front of the group.
“Wonderful! Oh, and one more thing my dear,” he snapped his paw and chains encircled her horns, “Can’t have you cheating either, now can we?”
She could feel how much magic dampening titanium had been used to forge the chains. Dimly, she realized the chains alone could probably buy out half of the noble homes in Canterlot and still have some money left over. It was as if someone had suddenly pulled a blindfold over her eyes when she failed to sense the nearest leylines.
Smoke puffed out of Twilight’s ears and Discord laughed delightedly but grew somber when he spoke again, “Be warned Sparkle, if I do not like how you play, I will simply take you from the game myself and we can both watch as the rest of your friends play,”
Her eyes blazed with fury, growing slitted pupils, and glowing a little in the late afternoon sun. She started forward as if to charge him again but her paws remained rooted to the ground. Her growl went so deep, the other ponies only felt the vibrations of it from the earth below. Slowly, her claws tore up the grass in clumps as they clenched.
“Splendid,” Discord exclaimed in a sinister timbre, “Have fun!”
Then he vanished and the maze seemed to loom even higher around them. Spike gently touched his mother’s new muzzler, wondering if he could somehow take it off. Unfortunately, the moment his hoof made contact with the metal, electricity sparked and electrocuted the poor colt.
The next thing Spike knew, he was laying on his back in the grass and surrounded by his friends. When he sat up, he noticed his mother sitting far away from the rest of them, horror painting her face.
Spike quickly got up and trotted over to her, only for her to back up quickly, shaking her head fearfully.
“Mmf!” Twilight attempted to stop her son, but the muzzler was tight and her mouth wouldn’t open.
Internally, she steamed. Twilight Sparkle was a dragon, not an aggressive dog that required chains. Her pride screamed at her to take vengeance on the creature that dared to chain a dragon. But if the metal hurt the others, then she would gladly stay away from them until she figured out how to take it off.
“But-” Spike sadly pressed forward anyway but was restrained by Applejack.
“Uh uh!” Twilight forcefully grunted, “Mmf,”
Rainbow Dash sighed softly, “Guess we should start?”
Twilight nodded. The faster this was over with, the faster her friends could gain their magic back.
“Come on Spike, you can walk and protect me as we go,” Fluttershy said kindly, nuzzling the top of Spike’s head.
“Y-Yeah! I’ll protect you!” Spike quickly stood next to Fluttershy like a guard.
When Twilight met Fluttershy’s eyes, she was surprised to see the amount of steel in the normally passive pegasus’ eyes. Fluttershy gave her a reassuring nod and Twilight felt her heart settle back into her chest.
“Let’s go everyone,” Applejack led the way into the entrance.
The ponies fanned out and stood in a squad formation with Applejack as the leader and Twilight at the very end. Simultaneously, each being took a step forward.
Even with the magic dampening chains, Twilight could feel the shimmering in the air as a spell activated. Her chains rattled and the iron band around her body creaked with strain as she attempted to throw her wings over her head.
Between each pony, hedges grew fast enough to blow dust away. Everyone screamed as their view from their friends was cut off. Right before the hedge next to her sprung to life, she saw Fluttershy shove Spike underneath her. In some distant part of her mind, she knew Fluttershy would lay her life down for her son, which put her slightly more at ease. Shadows seemed to try and reach for Twilight as the hedges grew to the height of a building.
The sound of Spike screaming sent Twilight into a frenzy. A red haze settled over her vision as she dove sideways into the hedge and used her claws to gouge and scrape away at the plant material. Right when she was about to break through, she was teleported away in a flash of light.
Discord tsked in her face, “My dear, Twilight! The game barely started! What a shame. Oh well, we will simply watch,”
A finger snap later, she and Discord were incorporeal blobs of mist, somehow watching and listening to all six of the ponies at once. It was a strange sensation, seeing and hearing without eyes or ears. The feeling snapped Twilight out of her rage for a split second before it came back with a vengeance.
“You try taking a child from their mother and expect no drastic actions?!” Twilight hissed, dismissing what was happening to address Discord.
She stopped talking in surprise. The concept of being able to talk without physical vocal cords or a mouth in the first place had her mind running away from her. Quickly she banished that thought, resolving to come back to it later.
She felt Discord look at her, “Oh dear, that was terribly cruel of me wasn’t it?” he said in a thoughtful tone, “That was information I wasn’t aware of. I deeply apologize,”
“I- what?” Once more, Twilight was shaken out of her rage to stare confounded at the draconequus.
“Come on everyone! We meet in the middle! Regroup! Move out!” Rainbow commanded, drawing Twilight’s attention.
“See y’all in the middle!” Applejack shot forward, galloping as fast as she could.
Discord spoke again, “I am the spirit of disharmony, Twilight Sparkle. Disharmony doesn’t simply mean evil. Chaos doesn’t mean evil. Evil is its own little thing that I don’t bother dealing with,”
Twilight was struck dumb. If she still had a mouth, it would’ve been opening and closing like a fish’s.
Then she asked, “If you’re not evil, then why do all this?”
“Being petrified in stone isn’t a good enough reason?” he sounded surprisingly sullen.
“So… you’re angry,” Twilight stated, casting her metaphorical eyes down on the maze, “But not as us specifically,”
“Oh good heavens no!” Discord pressed a paw to his chest, “I find you all very interesting, especially you. I mean a dragon that can still do pony magic? Wonderful! But you are Celestia’s foot soldiers, therefore, you are in the way,”
Twilight looked on, deep in thought as Applejack triggered a trap. The more analytical part of her mind slowly picked out and admired the mind manipulation. The more present part was helpless to do anything except watch as her friend chased after a trio of apples and fell into an illusion.
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hmmm interesting.
Hmm wasn't expecting that reaction from Discord when knowing about Twilight/Spike relationship, very interesting!
let the games begin
Another reason why I never liked Return to Harmony.
Seriously! To quote a certain xeno hunter: "Did IQs just drop sharply while i was away?" 
Other than that, good work, as always mellonin. Keep it up! 
As much as I like John de Lancie as Q I absolutely despise Discord. Whereas with Q there was a bit of benign intention behind half of what he did to the point that there is an entire PC game based around it, Discord's actions usually are entirely based around causing trauma emotionally, mentally, and possibly even physically while focused on his self-satisfaction and counting on his "friendship" as a get out of jail free card. This makes him less a being of chaos and more just an evil douchebag. Hell he's an accessory to attempted murder in the show during season nine when you stop and think about it even though they don't openly point it out. On the other hand there are stories that change just enough details or more to change that or give him more of a Q vibe which is what the show was trying but failing to do. In most of his interactions with Fluttershy his focus is still his self-satisfaction and the season 6 finale (which I still say was garbage) does not change anything considering everything before and after. Also the whole concept that someone isn't evil because they happen to be "friends" with someone as a justification/excuse doesn't work. So long as he's well writ a good or rather a not evil Discord is believable otherwise I hope to see everything go pear-shaped for him.