Labyrinth of Chaos

Canterlot

Several weeks later

Just as Celestia promised, Twilight and Spike were now part of the royal army, ditching the backwater town for good. Twilight, the priest and Spike, her jerkish brother, were separated to fill in their individual roles of being a monk and a spy.

But of all places, we have to start this chapter with Cheerilee and her students in a field trip to Canterlot's sculpture garden, because she's too cheap for something actually good.

"I want to start our field trip here, in the world-famous Canterlot sculpture garden." she says before pointing her hoof at a statue.

"That one over there represents "Friendship," She pointed her hoof at another direction, "And this one represents "Victory,"

As she babbled away, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle rambled about getting their cutie marks.

"How cool would it be to have that for a cutie mark?" Scootaloo remarked at the statue.

"Cool, if you were actually victoryful at somethin'." Apple Bloom teased.

"That's not a word!" Sweetie Belle snarled.

"What are you, a dictionary?" Scootaloo shot back at her.

"Girls!" Cheerilee hissed, "Now this is a really interesting statue. What do you notice about it?" She pointed towards another statue.

"It's got an eagle claw!" answered Apple Bloom,

"And a lion paw!" answered Scootaloo,

"And a snake tail!" answered Sweetie Belle.

"This creature is called a draconequus," said Cheerilee, "He has the head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things. What do you suppose that represents?"

"Confusion!" answered Apple Bloom,

"Evil!" answered Sweetie Belle,

"Chaos!" answered Scootaloo!,

"It's not chaos, you orphan!" Sweetie Belle snarled again.

"Don't call me an orphan! And it is too chaos!" Scootaloo, again, shot back at her.

"Is not!" Sweetie Belle shot back.

"You're both wrong!" Apple Bloom butted in and their argument turned hostile, giving each other chewed skin, black bruises, and swollen pink eyes.

Cheerilee's horn glowed and gave the crusaders a shocking zap, instantly ending their fight.

"Actually, in a way, you're all right. This statue represents "Discord," which means a lack of harmony between people. In fact, you three have demonstrated discord so well that you're each going to write me an essay explaining it."

The entire class started laughing at them. Beaten, electrocuted, made asses of themselves, and have to write an essay about 20 or so pages long.

"Now let's go, and I don't want anymore fighting, or you three will get electrocuted again."

"It's confusion!" Apple Bloom screamed,

"Evil!" Sweetie Belle screamed,

"Chaos!" screamed Scootaloo before getting zapped by Cheerilee again. And as the the entire class walked away, the statue started cracking.

Moments later

On the other side of the garden, Celestia was taking a leisurely stroll. Breathing in fresh air after narrowly escaping an encroaching nerve gas cloud from one of her magi misspelling a nerve spell.

Before the accident

"Dear Celestia! Nerve gas is leaking through my horn!" the mage shrieked before succumbing to paralysis. Before long, many other clerics, magi, and templars fell victim to paralysis before an elderly bishop prayed a divine spell and nullified the gas to complete harmlessness. Even though it was all cleaned up in a matter of minutes, at least several knights died during the tragedy, serving as a lesson to the rest of the army about carelessness.

Back to Celestia at the gardens

"Ahh..." she sighed with relief, "That was a close call!"

"..." She looked behind her, overlooking a thick hedge.

"Spike, I can see you." she said and with no hesitation he jumped out.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Hiding in the shadows. Isn't that what you wanted me to be?"

"Well, yes, but here of all places?"

"Just practicing my skills. Never had a chance to use it back in Ponyville."

"By eavesdropping on me?"

"Yeah..." he shrugged.

"Thank you, skulduggerist," she snarked before walking away.

"Hey, wait up!" Spike yelled but they were both interrupted by Cheerilee and her students' gibberish.

"And now class, this is Queen Celestia, the ruler of Equestria." and the entire class bowed to her.

"Queen Celestia," Cheerilee bowed, "are you going to grace us with your wisdom?"

"Wisdom of... well..." She then spotted a draconequus fleeing in the background, "Draconequus!" her voice raised and gave chase.

"Wisdom of Draconequus?" Cheerilee asked to herself, puzzled.

"Say wasn't that the same exact creature we saw from the statue?" Apple Bloom asked to her peers.

"Looks like the queen is too busy to ask." Cheerilee shrugged, "Let's continue on our way, children."

As she chased the creature alongside with Spike, she fired holy bolts from her horn, but the draconequus was dextrous and deftly dodged each bolt gracefully as each bolt impacted the pavement with explosive force, eventually leaving the garden in holy ruin. Before she can fire for the umpteenth time, the draconequus morphed into a falcon and flied away into the horizon at blinding speed.

"We lost him!" Spike panted.

"Nyet!" Celestia retorted. "I've placed a beaconing spell on him during our chase. He won't be hard to track down. We have to stop him from spreading chaos!"

"Are you sure? He doesn't look like he's--"

"Are you denying my orders?!" she snarled.

"Ahh..." cringed Spike, "Let's go...!" and they both raced to her bedroom. As they went inside, she donned on her old, gold plated armor on a stand and grabbed the Sol Hasta; the lance of the sun from a jewel encased spear rack, both polished and sharpened to an nth degree.

"Oooff..." she grunted from the lynching pain, "Looks like I'm not as svelte as I used to be..."

"When was the last time you fought?" asked Spike.

"Centuries ago. But we've no time to lose! We have to track him down!"

"If you say so, princess." Spike sighed. They spent a morning and an afternoon tracking him down, eventually reaching where the draconequus is hiding in the outskirts of Equestria; the Kitty Hawk Mountains.

"We're so far away from Canterlot!" Spike complained, "It's already midnight!"

"He's close. I can sense it."

"Alright! I give!" a male voice shrieked. It was the draconequus. He morphed back to his normal self in front of Celestia and raised his arms in the air.

She said nothing as she lifted the lance with her magic, ready to stab his heart.

"Why do you pursue me so?" he gently asked.

"Because you were spreading chaos, and I don't accept that." she answered.

"No I wasn't!" His voiced suddenly raised. "I was just spreading the ideals of chaos! Free will! Individuality!"

"You're a consequentian?"

"Yes. Consequentia, home the the draconequi. My home, and you turned me into stone, a bishop of all places! For so long... I've wanted to see my family... but all those centuries fly by, and they're now dead..."

Celestia was completely speechless and lowered her spear.

He sighed, "But if you're really like this, then you can kill me." He closed his eyes and raised his arms to the air again.

"I'm ready to die..."

"..."

"...I might've been stupid about hating chaos." she spoke up and he opened his eyes, "It's just that the same thing killed my entire family. Only I and Luna survived. She's my only family member alive, and I don't want to see her killed."

"You can't change the past, but you can change the future." Discord reached his paw to her, asking for a handshake, "Will you please join me back to Consequentia to mend your ways for good?"

Celestia hesitated and stared at Spike, hoping for an answer, in which he did; a nod. She stared back at Discord and slowly reached for his paw and shaked it, albeit a shaken one.

Celestia stared back at Spike.

"Are you coming Spike?" she asked and he jolted to their side with no hesitation,

"What will happen to Canterlot?" he asked.

"Luna will take over. Its time for her to take charge."

"Will she be alright?"

"She will. She's quite the rebel." she gave out a bitter chuckle, "Besides. Twilight and Shining Armor will be at her side."

"But who's going to inform her?"

"I will, with telepathy." Her horn glowed and sent a message to Luna's.

Discord sighed, "Look, I'm sorry for you're loss. I'll try to be as easy as possible. But first how are we going to get there? It's an ocean away."

"How did you get here anyway?" Celestia asked.

"By boat. But if it's only that simple..."

"Spike," Celestia asked, "Do you know any boat we can take?"

"Well, yeah. Twilight, Shining, and I met a band of pirates in Northern Equestria several weeks ago."

"Can you trust them?" she asked.

"Well Shining trusts them."

"Then considered them hired."