All in the Code

Discord appeared in a blank landscape, a flat white floor going in all directions. His smile faltered, not sure how he got here. In front of him, Code appeared out of nowhere, a smirk on his face. Behind him, a giant wall of pure black fire that gave Discord a startle burst out of the ground, moving straight up.

"Welcome Discord. This is the firewall, and I am a projection of the computer you are trying to get into. Do you have any questions?" The hologram chuckles at the chimeras face, the confusion spread to immeasurable levels on Discords face. He shakes it off before nonchalantly walking into the fire wall. He walks up to it, fully intending to teleport to the other side. He snaps his fingers and feels the pulling sensation of teleportation. There was a new feeling though, like elastic was stretching incredibly thin. The feeling bounced back into place on the wall and Discord found himself being flung back a good 30 feet.

He quickly got up and decided he wanted answers. "Just where are we, and what is... that?"

"We are on the outer side of the firewall. That is the firewall." The hologram said.

"Yes, I know that, but what is this place? I have never seen a mind like this, especially one that I couldn't crack."

"This is the first and weakest of the protections on master Codes computer core. What you think to be a mind is right now a machine. You will not crack into it, even if you pass this defense. Even if you get to the core of information, you will never leave alive. No matter how great you believe yourself to be, deity of chaos, you will not survive the look into infinity." Discord doubled over in laughter at this and wiped a tear from his eye.

After calming himself down, he turned and looked at the hologram. "Well, I think I can prove you wrong on that one. In fact, I will get to the core and see everything, and come out in stride just to spite you!"

The hologram didn't even bat an eye at this. "If you wish the worse death that will ever be, you may proceed. But I must warn you, what comes up is dangerous for a virus like you. 010000010100001101000011010001010101001101010011001000000101001001001111010101010101010001001001010011100100010100100000001100000010110101000001010011000101000001001000010000010010111000100000010001000100010101000001010000110101010001001001010101100100000101010100010001010010000001010100010010000100010100100000010001100100100101010010010001010101011101000001010011000100110000101110" With this, the hologram disappeared, the firewall with it. All that was left was a black door, green 0's and 1's moving in a perfect horizontal line across it. Discord smiled at this, and walked through the door.

On the other side, he appeared in a perfect box. The walls, floor, and ceiling a perfect black with a green outline. Discord quickly found out that all of his magic was gone. From in the top left corner a speaker appeared and started talking to him.

"Welcome, virus, to the first barrier to block trespassers into the computer core. In this test you have a 10 layered maze in which you start at the bottom right corner and end in the top left. The maze is ever changing and swapping floors, bringing the exits and you with them. Each level is different in it's own unique way. This is level one. For each second you spend in this maze it will get hotter and hotter, max heat levels reach the form of gaseous lava. This is reached at the time frame of ten hours. Do you still wish to proceed?" It said in a monotone digital voice.

Discord looked a little unsure of himself at this point. No magic, ten floors, each of them a maze more deadlier then the last, and this one was pretty damn deadly. He shook it off and nodded to himself, and the speaker mistook it as an affirmative.

"The trial will begin in 60 seconds. If you wish to leave you will yell that you surrender. If you fail the mission and die in the maze, you will die in the physical plane. Each level will get harder and harder as you get higher and higher. As the rooms move, if this one gets higher than another, trap holes will be added. If you fall in a trap hole you will be on the level before. The time you spend in each room is saved, so if you re-enter a level, it will not reset, and instead keep whatever setting it had when you left. Ten. Nine. Eight."

Discord looked very unsure of himself now. The walls were gone, but he hadn't started running. He couldn't teleport, he couldn't protect himself, and he couldn't see through the solid lead walls. He had nothing on his side, and just by the thought, he started sweating.

"Three. Two. One. Starting Heat. Go." The speaker was suddenly gone, and Discord needed no other words. He rushed off in the maze, trying his beast to get to the end before he met his end.

Five minutes later.

'Okay Discord, you can't tell if you've made progress, but you can do this! Man is it getting hot in here... but that doesn't matter! You are the immortal deity of chaos, nothing can beat you besides the elements of harmony, and they aren't here... oh I hope they don't find my body next to Codes and use the elements on me then... but I can't let this thing beat me!'

Ten minutes later.

'Oh crap it's getting to hot! It's like a thousand degrees in here!'

Reading his thoughts, a speaker came down from the ceiling further from him and yelled as he was passing, "Temperature reaching one thousand degrees Celsius. Accelerating heat."

'No no no no NO! I can't lose! I will not allow it!'

Fifteen minutes later.

"Okay okay, I can't take it anymore! The heat is to much! I think any more time and I might melt! I surrender!" As soon as he uttered the last word, he was launched backwards, and he saw that as the maze broke down, he was about to turn and face the starting door. He didn't have any time to think as he was thrown out of Codes mind and back into his own body, feeling a knock back of 10 feet, and landing on his butt.

Discord looked up at the cyborg in fear, not experiencing anything like that before in his long long life. The draconequus was panting with wide eyes full of terror. "Wha... what a-are you?" He weakly asked.

Code looked down at him with his cold metal eyes and frowned. His face a solid expression of disappointment. "From your bragging I would have hoped you could have breached the first of many trials. Looks like I was wrong. From what I am, I am Code. A self created cyborg. I am immortal in my own way, ageless and able to rebuild myself if I die. You are a weak deity of chaos, one whose power I can surpass. You do not deserve the satisfaction of attention. Now STAND UP!" Code yelled. Discord flinched and slowly got up to his mis-matched legs.

Code sent out his nanobots and cut all the connections of magic, effectively fixing anything he did with it. Code looked behind him and saw the Elements of Harmony galloping there way up to the both of them, library behind them. Code nodded and looked to Discord. "Turn around and face your fate." He turned around to see the Elements of Harmony standing there with smiles on their faces. After what seemed to be a short but annoying speech on friendship, they lifted in the air, striking Discord with a rainbow of harmony. Code scanned the magic and found it to be the purest of all things he had ever seen. He smiled to himself, feeling good from the connection with the rainbow.

Discord noticed the stone creeping up from his feet and through his body, and with a shocked expression on his face, he tried to avoid it as much as he could. "Noooooooo! Please! Don't do this again! I don't want to go through that again!" Code felt a sadness from hearing this and with a quick motion nullified the magic from the Elements. Discord was left standing there, almost fully encased in stone, only things able to move were his head.

The ponies using the Elements floated back down to the ground and opened their eyes, fully expecting to see a stone statue of  Discord. When they saw everything but his head encased they gasped and scrambled between themselves, Code and Discord sharing a chuckle at it. Putting a serious face on, Code turned to Discord, who stopped laughing when seeing the cyborg.

Code looked at the draconequus and found his magic supply. Putting a trapping field around it he broke the stone around him. Without his magic, Discord should be harmless, Code surmised. "You have been stripped of your abilities until you can learn to control them. You will be given one chance and as your soul purifies of the corruption you have obtained, and not a moment sooner. I hope this is not a mistake." Discord was on his knees from the experience of the almost full stoning. He panted again and noticed his lack of magic.

"*pant* *pant* Even though... you took my magic, *pant* I still have to thank you, *pant* for freeing me." He said, all confidence gone from his voice. Code nodded and smiled at Discord, turning around to see the Elements trying to get together again.

"*ahem*" Code coughed and got the girls attention. "You will not use the Elements on Discord again. He has been blocked off from his magic by me and will not get it back until he is pure again. There is nothing to fear from him anymore, but he needs to have friends to be able to be good again. I leave this task with you, but if you are antagonizing him, you will feel my wrath. This goes the other way around, Discord." The draconequus' smirk turned to a scared look as he remembered the maze.

The Elements were confused by the wrath statement, some thinking they could take them, namely Rainbow, and some just taking his word for it, namely the other five. Code nodded and walked off to his bunker, but was stopped by Twilight.

"What exactly did you do to him..?" She asked cautiously. Code turned and looked down to face her, and suggested it for a second.

"I won't give you the nightmares, and I don't trust you enough yet to let you know." He blatantly said to her.

"Well then, we're going to have to fix that sooner or later, mark my words, you will be our friend soon enough!" She confidently stated, looking to the sky. By this time, Code could sense a being getting close, a very powerful one, and decided he was done here. With this, he teleported to his bunker and walked inside, ready to scan the new information and progress in the research center.