Chapter 2: Long Life of Sunshine
The two stallions clung to each other for dear life. The inexplicable storm that Discord had summoned showed no signs of slowing down. The operating theatre was long gone, and now all that remained was the white void around them and the tornado.
"Where are we going?" Shady Dealing shouted over the din.
"I don't know!" said Robber Mask.
The jumpsuits that Discord had seen fit to dress them in dissolved around them. The two looked down as their clothing turned to orange dust and blew away in the wind. Mask hoped for a moment that the ball and chain binding them together would follow, but that didn't seem to be the case. Instead, he yelped as it began to rise into the air like a helium balloon, lifting him and Shady off the floor and further up into the storm.
Shady flapped his wings and righted himself, hovering in the air as the balloon dragged him upwards and trying to chew the chains off. Unfortunately, the chains were still as solid as metal, even though they had become lighter now. Mask wasn't so lucky, and instead dangled below the balloon by his hind legs. He gulped as he looked down at the ground, already far below them, as it too dissolved into dust and blew away like the rest of the operating theatre.
"Shady! I'm scared of heights!"
"That's great, Mask! I'm not too fond of them myself, despite the wings!"
Shady was trying to fly down and pull the balloon back towards the ground, away from the storm above, but it resisted him and continued their ascent. The wind didn't seem to be affecting its course either, only succeeding in knocking the two ponies around.
"I'm gonna fall!" Mask called.
"You're not gonna fall! That demon wouldn't put us in this position just to kill us! Just stay still while I try to get us out of this!"
At that point, the balloon stopped with a jerk, now hanging in the air with complete stillness. The storm also brought something new. The clouds of particles that had formed when the operating theatre melted were back, and this time they were different. No longer the whites and blues of that room, they were a mix of wooden brown, rich red, and a cream colour, too. As the two of them watched, they came together and became a room again, except not exactly a room. A corridor. A very long corridor, with cream-coloured wallpaper, a thick red carpet, and hundreds of doors in both directions with golden numbers on them. Above them, several chandeliers hung from the ceiling.
Once the corridor had finished forming, the two stallions just stopped and stared for a second. Mask was about to say something, but then the balloon popped, and he fell onto the carpet face-first.
"Ugh..." he groaned as he pulled himself up.
Shady, who had just been hovering beside him the whole time, landed with far less drama. Normally, the boss probably would have made fun of Mask at this point, but that was the last thing on either of their minds at the moment.
"...Where are we?" Shady asked, looking around.
He walked a few steps and examined the nearest door, which had a big shiny number "six-three-seven" screwed onto it just above a peephole.
"Looks like some kind of... hotel, maybe?" he said, running a hoof over the door.
Mask finally stood up again, leaning against the nearest wall. He breathed like he'd just finished running a marathon.
"That... was terrifying..."
"But why would we be in a hotel?" Shady continued, uninterested. "Sunshine was an apartment complex, not a hotel..."
At that point, there was an audible crackling. The stallions looked around, trying to find its source, until they noticed a series of speakers placed at regular intervals along the corridor's ceiling.
"Au contraire, my little ponies," Discord's distorted voice answered. "Sunshine House has a surprisingly rich history, dating all the way back to its original role as a hospital during the Fourth Celestial Era. Afterwards, during the economic boom following the invention of the steam engine, it enjoyed a stint as a five-star hotel. Good fortune doesn't last forever, though, and the Sunshine House Apartments soon emerged when the hotel closed its doors. Versatility is the name of the game, and this place changed with the times just like everypony else!"
Shady frowned.
"Discord..." he growled, speaking to the air. "Since when were you so interested in history, huh? What are we even doing here? What is this sick game of yours?!"
"But history can be such fun! Take this place, for instance. In the present, yes, a ruined old edifice ready to be demolished that's only any use to the rats. But dial back the timeline a bit, and think of all the interesting settings we can play around in! The ponies you could meet, the places you could see! Many would kill for such an opportunity! Don't be ungrateful."
"Discord—!"
"I'm sorry, that's all we have time for. You two run along and go meet your new neighbours. I'll be back to check on you later."
Shady stomped a forehoof as loudly as possible, which wasn't very loud due to it being cushioned by the carpet.
"Discord!"
The speakers just crackled again, and this time began playing a generic, repetitive jingle.
Shady was left staring at the ceiling, wings ruffling. Their tormentor was ignoring them, and now they were left to their own devices in this strange fantasy. Mask didn't know what to expect from this place, but he doubted it would be anything pleasant.
"...Boss?" he said.
Shady turned back to face him.
"Sorry. Yeah?"
"What are we gonna do?"
Shady paused to consider the question.
"...I don't know," he said honestly. "Wander around a bit, I suppose. See if we run into anything."
"I don't like this place, Shady. It's giving me the creeps."
"Yeah. Me too, buddy. Me too..."
That music hadn't gotten any less irritating over time. At least, not to Shady. His eye was twitching, and with every step he took, he seemed ready to explode into frothing rage. His partner, in contrast, very much seemed to like it. Mask was happily bobbing his head along to the repetitive tune, taking some kind of comfort in the simplicity and mundanity of it.
"Dear Celestia, will it ever end?" Shady moaned. "How long have we been wandering these corridors? It feels like it's been hours!"
"...It's been ten minutes, boss."
Sunshine House – if this was still Sunshine House – was deceptively complex. Though the long straight corridor they had started in seemed to imply that the building was very neatly designed and straightforward, they had instead reached the end of it only to find it giving way to dozens of other, shorter corridors. They twisted and turned in such a way that could only have been Discord's doing, as there was no way that any sane architect would have designed a building this way.
They had been wandering this floor for ten minutes, if Mask was to be believed, but to Shady, it felt like far longer. Those ten minutes seemed to blur together into a haze of samey-looking corridors and a continuous stream of repetitive background music. There was never any variation aside from the twisting of the corridors themselves. All the doors looked the same aside from their numbers, which continued to count ever higher until they were into the quadruple digits. All the speakers above looked the same, and were placed at the same regular intervals. And every so often, they'd pass a cold radiator, each one identical to the last.
"I want it to stop, Mask! It's drilling into my brain!"
"What is?"
"The music! That Celestia-damned music! I can't take much more of it!"
Mask raised an eyebrow. "Really? It bothers you that much?"
"Yes!"
Shady curled up into a ball and laid down on the carpet, shivering as he hugged himself with his wings.
"It's always the same, Mask... It never ends... Never ending... stupid elevator music... going on, and on, and on..."
The worst part of it wasn't even the music itself. It was how every so often, it would cut out for just a split second, before continuing on just as before. It was that tiny, brief moment of hope that it would finally end that made the pain all the worse. Truly this was a horror no mortal was meant to experience.
"Oh, quit being such a baby!" said Mask. "It's just a little jingle. Don't tell me that this was all Discord needed to break you?"
Shady Dealing glared up at his partner and rose to his full height again. His expression was one of righteous fury and indignation.
"No. You're right. I'm not going to stand for this!"
Mask watched him as he flapped his wings and rose into the air, before shooting down the corridor back the way they came like a bolt of lightning. He dashed straight for the nearest speaker, twisted around mid-air, and bucked it with his hind legs as hard as he could. The music stopped abruptly as the speaker shattered into chunks of plastic and fell onto the carpet below, leaving only wires dangling out of a hole in the wall.
"There!" he shouted in triumph. "I did it! My torment is over! Take that, Discord!"
A nearby door suddenly flew open, and a draconequus poked his head out, frowning at the pony hovering by where the speaker used to be.
"You know, causing property damage is not an endearing trait," he said.
"Look who's talking!"
"Me?" said Discord, placing a mismatched hand over his heart. "I'll have you know that I never destroyed anything during either of my great chaotic reigns! I just twisted things into new and interesting shapes, and then made them dance around! There's a huge difference!"
He stepped out of the room and walked over to where the speaker had fallen. He picked up the largest two chunks of its remains, and looked at them sadly.
"This, though? This is monstrous. I don't know how you can live with yourself."
Shady's jaw hung open.
"But you—!"
"Up, up, up! Zip it! You've committed an act of vandalism, and damaged hotel property. Therefore, you answer to the hotel staff now."
"What staff?" Shady shouted. "There's nopony here!"
Discord rolled his eyes and tossed the broken remains of the speaker over his shoulder.
"You know, I was a lot more respected before this whole reforming business. Ponies didn't tend to run their mouths off to the Spirit of Chaos when they thought he would replace their legs with pogo sticks if they disobeyed. That's my curse, I suppose. I'm just too nice for my own good. But no matter. I'll leave the janitor to deal with you."
He did a little twirl with his claw, and a new costume appeared on him with a pop. A top hat sat over his horns, a monocle covered his right eye, and he was now wearing a suit and carrying a cane.
"Janitor?" Mask repeated, speaking up for the first time since Discord appeared.
"Hmm?" said Discord, checking a watch that had appeared on his wrist. "Oh yes, the janitor. Charming fellow. Large, hairy, has a very expressive face. You'll know when you see him."
Discord strolled over to the doorway he had entered from and began to leave. Just before he closed the door behind him completely, he poked his head out yet again.
"Be careful. He bites."
Left alone in the corridor again, now quiet for the first time since they arrived, Mask and Shady looked at each other uneasily.
"I don't like the sound of that," said Mask.
A sudden loud thudding noise came from behind them. Both ponies turned their heads towards the end of the corridor, in the direction they had been heading towards before. A short distance ahead, the corridor split. The noise came from around the corner to the right, a steady, distant pattern of thumps like the footsteps of something very big, and most probably with two legs from the sound of it.
"...And I like the sound of that even less!" Shady added.
The steps grew ever louder. Shady fluttered down and landed to lay a hoof on Mask's shoulder, as much as to support himself as to comfort his friend. He didn't say another word. The two of them maintained their silence as the source of the noise came into view.
A gargantuan blue minotaur emerged from around the corner, stomping towards them. His pace didn't change, but his expression did, in a subtle way. At first, he just looked angry to be here in this place. But as soon as he noticed the two ponies standing in the corridor, his anger was directed towards them instead. Still, they stood their ground, though Shady's heart raced and his partner's knees shook as the beast approached.
The minotaur came to stop right in front of them, and they cowered in his shadow. In a booming voice, he spoke to them.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SPEAKER?!"
Their immediate punishment was not nearly as severe as Shady had been expecting. Upon both failing to come up with a good excuse and trying to pin the blame on each other, the nameless minotaur janitor had simply picked up both stallions, slung them over his shoulder, and marched back the way he came from, carrying them with him. They turned the corner at the end of the corridor, and both ponies looked behind them to see the path ahead. This next hallway was much shorter, and halfway down, an old wooden elevator waited for them.
The janitor tossed them inside and followed them in. His fist slammed the button for the basement level. The panel sparked with magic, and a cage door slid closed as the elevator began to descend. Once they were moving, Shady and Mask dragged themselves to their hooves again. The minotaur glared down at them, crossing his arms over his chest. For a moment, they all simply stood and waited, the elevator silent but for the distant rumbling of the winch lowering them.
Shady was the one to break the silence.
"Wait a second, you play elevator music through ceiling-mounted speakers in the hallways outside ponies' rooms, but not in the actual elevator?"
The janitor's unamused glare only intensified.
The elevator stopped with the sound of a ringing bell, and the cage doors opened again. The janitor grabbed both Shady and Mask by their tails and dragged them out as the elevator closed behind them.
Emerging into a dingy room lit only by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, they suddenly found themselves thrown onto a pair of wooden chairs before an old office desk. All around them, the room was filled with cleaning supplies and repair materials. A mop rested against the wall in one corner. An old vacuum cleaner gathered dust in another. Several boxes filled with wires, packs of light bulbs, and pieces of copper and tubing and old rubber were stacked next to the desk. Behind it were filing cabinets that looked like they hadn't been used in eons. On the other side of the room, a red metal door was locked shut.
The janitor sat down behind the desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a dusty log book and pen, which he dumped in front of him and then opened up to the middle pages. One was full of scruffy writing, and the other was blank. He stuck the pen between his teeth and held it there while he then searched himself and the top drawers for something else. This turned out to be a pair of reading glasses, which he donned as he removed the pen from his mouth and used it to scribble a quick note in the book.
All the while, Mask and Shady remained as still as possible, awaiting whatever judgement he would pass.
"Alright," the janitor said finally, pushing the log book aside. "Now you two have some explaining to do to the manager."
The stallions exchanged a look of mutual confusion. The janitor didn't explain further, instead reaching to the side and pulling over a white device that Shady had until that point mistaken for a lamp, but which he now realised was actually an old candlestick telephone, a device that was rare even in the present day, let alone whatever time period they were in now.
After dialling a three-button number, the janitor held it up to his ear and spoke.
"Yeah, boss? Found a couple of vandals on the fifth floor. Damaged one of the speakers."
The phone suddenly became very loud, and the janitor held it away and winced as it began spewing a stream of incomprehensible vitriol. He eventually put it back to his ear and continued listening.
"I know. Uh-huh." He paused until the other end went quiet. "I brought them down here."
If the boss was still speaking, Shady could no longer hear him.
"Well, that's why I called you... Yes, sir. Certainly."
The janitor calmly put the phone down and gave the two stallions a sympathetic look.
"I'm sorry, guys, but you're both going to die."
At that exact moment, the elevator opened up again and a moustached unicorn walked in, his face red with sheer, unbridled rage, though his coat was otherwise dark. He levitated a phone almost identical to the janitor's next to him, with a long coiled cord trailing behind him back into the elevator, and rising up through a grate in its roof to somewhere above. Shady didn't even have enough time to contemplate how little sense that made before the pony he presumed to be the manager stomped over and started screaming at them.
"So, breaking speakers, is it?! And just what precisely made you think you would get away with that kind of behaviour in my hotel, hmmmmmmm?!"
He spoke to both of them, but it was Mask who he was looking at while he said it. He cringed from the volume of the manager's voice.
"It wasn't me! Shady did it!"
Shady glared at him for a moment, but was then surprised as the manager slapped Mask in the face.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"For snitching on your friend!" the manager roared, his bushy brown moustache bristling. "Do you have no sense of loyalty?"
Mask blinked repeatedly and looked back and forth between Shady and the janitor, who could both only offer him confused shrugs in return.
"Umm..." he stuttered. "So would you rather I just not told you who...?"
The manager slapped him in the face again, knocking Mask fell off his chair while Shady winced.
"Earth ponies!" he shouted, shaking his hoof at Mask. "Why are all earth ponies so worthless?"
The manager turned to the janitor. "That's a serious question, Axe Grind! Tell me why earth ponies are so worthless?"
Axe Grind sighed.
"Because you say they are, boss."
"Damn right!" He then turned to Shady. "You're not an earth pony, so why are you engaging in earthish vandalism like this other one?"
Shady blinked.
"Why are you so racist? I didn't think guys like you even still existed anymore."
The manager tilted his head back, glaring down his nose at him. Shady looked over to Mask again, who'd retaken his seat and still looked as incredulous as before.
Screw it, Shady thought. Might as well be honest for once.
"Look, listen to me," he said with a sigh. "Me and my friend aren't from around here. Or even from this time period. We come from the future, after this building is run down and supposed to be demolished. We were sent here by a being called Discord, who's playing some kind of sick game with us, and he took us back to the period where this place was a hotel, which is now. We didn't see anypony here, so I thought that it was an illusion and that it didn't matter what I broke, and the music from the speaker was annoying me, so I broke it to lash out at Discord. And I'm sorry."
The manager narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer.
"Hmm... You managed to keep a straight face while telling me that... I don't believe you, but you are a pegasus, so I believe you more than I would if the dirt pony had told me the same thing. And you said it with conviction. Therefore I'm going to assume that you're not lying, but simply insane."
The manager turned to Axe Grind again.
"Get the mud-eater to fix the speaker, and take this one to see Dr. Lobe."
"Uhh.... Who's Dr. Lobe?" asked Shady.
"She lives on the third floor," the manager answered calmly, backing away. "She used to work here back when this was Sunshine General Hospital. She helps us out around here. She'll find out what's wrong with you."
"But I'm not—"
"Yes, thank you, goodbye."
He turned and marched out of the room, heading back into the elevator with his telephone and disappearing once more as the cage door slid closed and he ascended out of sight. Left alone with the janitor again, the two ponies immediately looked over to him.
"What the hay was up with that guy?" asked Mask.
Axe Grind sat back in his chair.
"I've been working with him for years, and I still don't know. He's not even like that all the time. Some days he's frothing at the mouth about how much he hates earth ponies, griffons, and for some reason sea lions, hits his employees, throws things, and shouts at everyone. Other days he's pleasant and gentle to everybody, even the ones he says he hates. And every once in a while he's been known to suddenly become depressed and start writing poetry."
He opened a drawer in his desk.
"In fact I have some of it here. It's actually very good poetry. I can read you some if you want?"
"Uh... no thanks," said Shady. "I'd rather we just get to work doing the things to make him not mad at us anymore."
"Of course." Axe Grind closed the drawer again and sighed. "So, let's—"
There was a dinging noise as the now empty elevator returned. Axe Grind stood up from his desk.
"Right... Come on, you two."
Shady and Mask did as they were told and followed the minotaur back into the elevator again, this time willingly. As they did, a thought occurred to Shady, and he leaned over to his partner.
"Hey, Mask?" he whispered.
"Yeah?"
"This is the same basement we slept in before, isn't it?"
Mask slowly nodded.
"So... why wasn't this elevator here in the future?"
All around them, the two ponies heard Discord chuckle.
This was a long time coming due to other projects pestering me with their incompleteness. Please forgive me for the delay.
For the record, this was the song I pictured as the one coming out of the speakers:
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Hah, this kind of reminds me of the creepy hotel episode of Dr. Who, if you've ever seen that show.
A lot of different directions this could go. I shall continue to follow it.
2542996
I was thinking the exact same thing, especially with the way that Mask and Shady got sent there by a near omnipotent and somewhat crazy being.
I hope this doesn't turn out like 1408
2542996 Even has a minotaur character! Heh.
This is very interesting.
the minotaur is riffling through his draws? You sure you don't mean drawers?
2547186
Jesus, I can't believe I missed that. Thanks.
Oh man, this is still awesome. My only qualm is the constant paragraph breaks; there seem to be a lot of places where what could easily be a single paragraph is broken into three or more. It's not a big deal, and this is more a stylistic thing, but I feel that it would be easier to read as one continuous stream of text with fewer separate paragraphs.
Other than that, I can't wait for more! In the space of this chapter we've gotten an amicable minotaur janitor and a hilariously bi-polar boss – what's next?
–[A]n angry looking unicorn walked in levitating a phone almost identical to the janitor's next to him. It had a long cord trailing behind it back into the elevator, which rose up and through a grate in the elevator's roof to somewhere above.
Little lines like these are so giggle-worthy.
Time travel? Nice touch.
yay! a minotuar! they dont get enough love.
This shows promise. And I love seeing reformed but still rather cruel Discord, you write him very well.
One thing though, and that might just be me who's odd, but you shouldn't need to use caps for yelling. That's what the expression "shouting" that you use anyway is for. Describe that he is shouting and exactly how loud he is, that will make your writing better. If you ask me.
Eagerly awaiting your next chapter.
i was thinking god complex for a little bit.... huh
As much as I hate to admit it, I'm liking this story more than Human. Mostly because Discord is best pony.
...What's that? Discord's not a pony at all?
FUCK YOU, HE'S BEST PONY ANYWAY!
images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/32100000/DISCORD-discord-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-32193682-900-2342.jpg
When I look at you cover picture, I think: "Meth, not even once"
"I'm sorry, guys, but you're going to die."
That fucking part. I just lost it. It's just so violent, and so right the fuck out of nowhere. xD
Brilliant.