Labyrinth: Return of Discord

When Twilight stepped off the platform, her hoof slipped and she lost her balance.  Her wings stretched out to try to keep herself steady, but it was a lost cause.

"Wh-what?!"  She skidded forward and spun in a circle.  "What's going on?!"  She looked down and gasped.

The cobblestone was covered in slick oil, which bubbled and spat little black droplets onto her purple coat, clinging to her hooves and making it impossible to stay on all fours.  She slid into a post and fell forward.  Her magic flared and she teleported herself a few feet into the air, wings still stretched to catch her before she could fall.

"Girls!  Be careful.  Something is wrong here!"

Her magic strained against the bubbling oil.  It quivered, trembled, and ultimately split to make a safe path through for the others.

"Hurry!"

Spike, Pinkie, and Applejack ran forward, taking the path that led them through and away from the oil.  Fluttershy stood there a moment before trotting after them, her head hung low.

Once they had all made it to the grassy area where there was no oil, Twilight dropped her magic and the oil quickly moved to reclaim its territory.  She lowered herself to land beside them.

"He's already taking over.  Spike, do you have any idea where Rarity is?"

Spike was momentarily distracted by checking his bag where he had stored Angel.  The bunny seemed perfectly fine, albeit a little jostled by the run.  He looked back up at Twilight.  "Well, knowing her..."  His gaze fell.  "She's probably wherever a stallion is."

Fluttershy snickered.  "Of course she is.  Poor Spikey-wikey," she mocked in an exaggerated attempt at Rarity's voice.  "You'll never be good enough for Rarity, superstar designer."

"Fluttershy!"  Applejack glared at the pegasus, who stuck her tongue out in return.

Spike sighed heavily.  "It's all right, Applejack.  I mean, she's right, so..."  He tried to smile.  "The kind of stallions she likes are at the castle, and that's where we need to be, anyway."

Twilight gave him a consoling hug with her foreleg around the neck, then ran up the grassy hill.  "We have no time to lose!  We have to-"

"Have to what?"  Applejack followed and also skidded to a halt.

"Oh!  Oh, is this a new kind of game?  My turn!  Have to what what?"  When Pinkie crested the hill, her bouncing ceased.  She stared with slack-jawed, stunned surprise.  "Uh oh..."

Spike tentatively climbed the hill.  When he, too, froze at the top, Fluttershy rolled her eyes.

"It can't be that bad," she muttered and lifted herself off the ground with a gentle flap of her wings.  She floated upward and, upon spying the castle made of swiss cheese, broke out into laughter.

The others glanced up at her with surprise, then were surprised that they were surprised.  Twilight sighed and started through the town, avoiding the oil-covered roads as best she could.

"Help, Princess!"  cried a Canterlot citizen.  "I can't stop dancing!"

"You- haha! - can't stop dancing - hehe!  I can't stop - snirk - laughing!  Hahaha!"

Pinkie surveyed the citizens afflicted with her favorite activities:  singing,dancing, laughing, baking, and more.  A grin broke across her face.  "Did you say this Discord guy was bad?  'Cause he sure seems like a pony who likes to par-tay!"

"Pinkie, please be serious!"  Twilight looked at the pink pony with a small frown.  "Do they look happy?"

The pony's grin deflated some.  "I guess not..."  Her gaze fell.  "But aren't these the things I make people do?"  She sat down with infected realization.  "Aren't I just as bad as him?"

Applejack groaned.  "Not you, too!"  She reared up and pushed Pinkie over in a fit of frustration.  "Ya don't force anypony into laughin'!  They do it 'cause they want to!  It's completely different, all right?"

Pinkie blinked a few times, then giggled and squirmed on her back in the grass.  "Hey!  Did you guys realize?"  She rolled over to lie on her stomach.  "This isn't grass!  It's candy grass!"

"Candy... grass?"  Spike reached down to pluck a leaf of the grass and ate it.  "She's right!  It's sweet!"

"We don't have time for this!  We have to find Discord and put a stop to this!"

"Oh, okie-dokie!"  Pinkie got up after taking a big bite of the grass.  She followed after the others, bouncing around to take a bite of everything in search of more candy.

Fluttershy floated above them.  Her head turned this way and that to survey the results of Discord's magic with a smug grin.  "Well, it's nice to see that he's having a good time."  Her grin fell and she began to lower as her flapping grew weaker.  "It is nice... that he's happy..."  She landed a little harder than expected.  "That's all I wanted..."

In the castle, Discord was haphazardly splayed across Celestia's throne.

"I'm so bored!"  he whined.  He writhed and scratched his talons along the arm of the throne, then flopped to lie on his stomach.  "I've won, so why am I bored?"

"Because you've won nothing, Discord, and you know this to be true," Celestia said with bitterness in her voice from her spot a safe distance away.  Her horn and legs were encased in green gelatin.

Luna was beside her, almost fully surrounded by the gelatin save for her face so that she could breathe.  He was chaotic, but not that cruel.

"Twilight and her friends will arrive soon and they have the Elements of Harmony with them.  You will be defeated again."

"Oh, but Tia!"  He slid off the throne and floated over to her.  "That would require all of her friends to be in the right state of mind, and...  Oh, you don't know, do you?"  He snickered.  "Yes, you were too busy to notice, weren't you..."

Celestia narrowed her eyes.  "Notice what, Discord?  What have you done?"

"What have I done?"  He put a paw to his chest.  He hovered upside-down in front of her.  "What have I done?  I'm not the one that filled her head with sweet little sugarplums."  He reached out and stroked her cheek with his claw.  "Don't think I couldn't sense it.  You tried to make her forget, didn't you?"

The alicorn's gaze flickered away.  Guilt lurked in their endless depths and he grinned.

"I did what I thought was necessary," she said in a low voice.  "It was for her protection.  I had to keep her calm so that-"

"So that she wouldn't free me.  But you led her straight to me, and now here I am."

The flaps of cheese that replaced the doors to the throne room flew open.  Twilight stood at the front of the group, her chest heaving with ragged breaths.

"And there they are!"  He stretched his arms outward to gesture to the ponies.  "Your valiant rescuers!"  He snapped his talons.

He disappeared and reappeared in the middle of the group.  His arms snaked through the air, wrapped around each of their necks, and pulled them all in for a big hug.

He grinned at Celestia.  "Do you notice now, Celestia?  Do you see it now?"  He hugged them closer despite their struggling.

Twilight's horn started to glow, but he clicked his tongue.

"Tsk, tsk, little princess.  Twilight, I believe?"  With another snap of his talons, her horn turned into a banana, which he plucked from her forehead.  "Let's keep our magic to ourselves."

After recovering from the shock of losing her horn, Twilight scowled.  "And what about your magic, Discord?"

"My magic?"  Discord asked with mock offense in his voice.  He let go of them and floated up into the air.  "It's not magic.  It's chaos!  Completely different."  He peeled the banana to take a bite.  "Besides, that's the least of your concerns, don't you think?"

Twilight didn't take her eyes off him.  "What does that mean?"

"There are six Elements, but I only see three ponies."

Spike frowned.  "And a dragon!"

Discord rolled his eyes.  "And an inconsequential dragon.  So what does that mean?"

A silent moment passed before Twilight lifted her head high to scowl at him.  "What have you done with Rainbow Dash and Rarity?"

"They're safe.  For now."  He teleported to sit on the throne again.

"That throne is not yours to sit on!"  She stomped a hoof.

"Ooh, is that your royal Canterlot voice?  I'm trembling!"  He wobbled like gelatin, then broke into laughter.  "That hardly reached across the room, Princess!"

Twilight growled, then looked at the trapped princesses.  Her ears fell back.  "Princesses!"

"Do not worry for us, Twilight.  You must find your friends."

"That's quite enough out of you."  His talons snapped and an oversized ribbon appeared.  It wrapped itself tight around her snout.  "Now, then, Twilight.  What do you think you can do without your magic and without your friends?  Without all of that, what use are you?"

Pinkie bounced forward to stand at Twilight's side. "Hey now!  You're being an even bigger meanie than Fluttershy, and she's pretty mean right now!"

Discord's lips curled into a grin.  "Yes, where is the little pegasus?"

Applejack looked over her shoulder.  "Now where in tarnation did she wander off to?"

"Why don't you all have a nice cup of tea while I go find her?"  A gignatic teacup appeared and the princesses, the ponies, and Spike were teleported inside.  "Play nice, everyone!"

The teacup was a third of the way full with gelatin, each one of them up to their chins.  Applejack struggled with all of her farm-raised might, but it was no use.

Though they couldn't see it, they heard the snap and knew he had disappeared.

Elsewhere in the castle, Fluttershy had found the room she had stayed in the night prior.  She walked out onto the balcony.  As she gazed out over the royal gardens and the hedge maze beyond it, her head fell and her eyes closed.

"Well, hello my dear!"

Fluttershy flinched, but didn't open her eyes.  "What do you want?"

"Only to check on you, of course.  Your dear little friends are worried about you."  He slid through the air and put a paw to her chin to lift her head, but she jerked away from him.  "Now, that's not very nice."

She took a step away from him.  "You have what you want."

"Yes, I do, don't I!"  He lowered himself to stand on the ground.  With a regal pose, one arm behind his back and the other across his chest, he gazed out from the balcony.  "I am quite pleased.  Not even a day out of that prison and I already rule Canterlot!  It won't be long before I have Equestria."

"And that..."  Her voice faltered.  "That's what you want?"

Discord conjured a glass of chocolate milk.  "Of course.  It's what I've always wanted."

Fluttershy made a strange sound that caused his confidence to waver.  It was a meek, strangled sob.  She covered her face with her hoof.

"Why me?"  she asked in a soft voice.  "Why did you have to use me?"

"Isn't it obvious?  I needed someone so foolishly kind that they would believe anything I wanted them to."  He turned his head to look at her, but saw that she was gone.  "Fluttershy?"  He stepped through the drapes into the room which was equally empty.  "I-" He choked.

A throb of pain shot through his chest, unlike anything he had felt before.

His paw raised to his chest and his claw grabbed the nearest drape, yanking it from the wall.  He growled and threw the cloth to the ground.  "What was that?  Am I having a heart attack?!"  He took a few slow, deep breaths.  "I can't have a heart attack...  Can I?"