Death City

"Well, here we are." Thunders voice ran through the cool, crisp air of the night's sky. Right now, Luna's moon had been overhead the two and shined a sprinkle of light onto the land. Without it, nothing would have been visible nor would they be able to see.

Chapter 29 - The Hallways of Hell

In front of Thunder and Twilight stood a castle-like structure; it's aged stone material covering the walls and gates of the perimeter. Mold grew in some areas of the wall, showing that it had been an old structure itself and had been standing for a while now. On the outside had been a solid stone gate with a large wooden door on the front of it, allowing them to enter and exit. On the inside had been the castle referred to currently as Mystic Cauldron. Some windows had lurked their way onto the sides of the castle while the rest of it had also been made out of some sort of stone substitute. Over at the top of the castle structure had been medieval carvings of all different kinds of creatures hanging off of each of the few tips over at the top of the castle. All the way in the bottom had been another wooden door, except this one had been a lot smaller compared to the size of the one covering the gate itself.

"Mystic Cauldron." Twilight spoke up for the first time in a while. "Let's head in." She announced. With that, Twilight began trotting ahead towards the gate of the castle.

"Um, Twilight!" Thunder tried to get her attention. "I don't think it's a very good idea to..!" He had then realized that Twilight hadn't been listening as she kept trotting forward. "huh." Thunder let out a large sigh before continuing forward with Twilight to the Mystic Cauldron, where they would find their friends, defeat Discord, and maybe even find a little something extra.

"Damn, this place is dark." Strife pointed out the obvious. It had been one of his main attributes in life that nopony seemed to like nor care for. Currently, the gang had been traveling down one of the many hallways located in the castle. The only problem had been there wasn't much lighting in the area. All there were was a candle or two attached to the wall every now and then. Even the candles hadn't been that bright, causing it to be even darker. Lucky for the rest of the gang, they had Justine, who literally knew the entire castle from the inside out.

"How much longer do we have to travel? My hooves are killing me. This place is too dark. Why can't there be more lighting? If I owned this place the first thing I would do is…." Rarity never even got a chance to finish her whining before Raymond stopped her.

"C'mon, quit your bitchin'." He snapped. Raymond had grown tired at Rarity for every exact thing she said or did. It had been as if her only purpose in life was to not only annoy him, but everypony else.

"Guys, snap out of it!" Justine spoke over the two. She had currently been at the front of the group and had been leading them down the mysterious hallways of the castle. "If you want to confront Discord, you have to learn how to work together as well as communicate with each other."

"W-wait, how'd yall know we were gonna confront Discord here?" Applejack began to shutter as the words slipped out her lips.

"Heh, it's a gift." Was all Justine answered as she trotted some more down the dark hallway. This left a bunch of puzzled faces from the group as they tried to decode what she had just exclaimed.

"Umm, Ms. Justine." Seamus galloped upwards till he had been right next to the red mare. "Is it ok if I ask you one quick question?" His mare-ish voice emanating through the hallways.

"Anything for you, you adorable foal." Justine began rubbing a hoof down the alicorns hair as she spoke.

"First of all," Seamus began, rejecting the hoof across his hair. "I am a colt." His civilized voice being loud enough for everypony to hear. "Second of all, if I might ask, but how do you know this castle so well? Were you trapped in it for years or something?" His curiosity got the best of him as he began spitting out questions at the dazzled mare.

"Well, one could say that." Justine replied as she resumed trotting down the hallway. Seamus was soon close by as he asked yet another question.

"What do you mean by that?" The maroon alicorn asked once more.

"It's more of a family secret, but what's the harm in sharing it with just a few ponies." Justine began. "Long ago, when Equestria had just been a small town off to the side of the Everfree Forest, my father had been looking for a new place to open up civilization. He had grown tired of following the so-called ruled in Equestria, so he decided to move away, to somewhere that would have no rules, to a place where HE could make up his own rules. And he had been foolish enough to follow that dream."

"One day, he had stumbled upon an old estate that we happen to be standing in right now. The sign outside had mentioned it had been "noted for removal", but that didn't stop my father. He headed in to the manner and had bought it from the owner of the place who had wanted it destroyed. Right before he had purchased the estate, the owner had warned him about the mysteries that lurked around the castle. It was rumored that King Henry the fifth had not only built the castle, but lived in it too. But what made it worse was one day the spouse of the King had died in the castle, and ever since then, bad luck appears through the castle. Others believe that it had been the ghost of the wife of King Henry that had caused the manner to be in such a tizzy, but my father didn't believe in all that mystical junk like goblins and dwarfs, so he jumped to conclusion and bought the place. Such a tragic mistake was made that day as my one and only father had purchased what would become as one of the most haunted places in all of Equestria."

"So what happened next?" Pinkie Pie jumped forward till she had also been on the other side of Justine. "Did he die or leave or what?"

"Just, try not to interrupt me, ok?" Justine responded to Pinkie. She had already grown tired pf the pink, energetic mare that it forced her to share her true feelings.

"Like I was saying, after buying the estate, the first thing he did was get to work. For years, he'd been studying the law of science and chemical reactions and all that stuff, but Equestrias laws prevented him from actually experimenting with them. This led him out to find a new place to conduct his experiments, which led him none other than here."

"His main goal when working on an experiment was to find out how it affected the pony body. He tried his experiments on many different creatures, even my mother! But even that didn't work well. Shortly after I was born, my mother died from a chemical reaction after one of fathers experiments. It had been a terrifying loss as all my father did was sit I the corners of his room, sobbing, and waiting for death to hit him too. Then came the day, the day that I not only lost my mom forever, but my dad too."

"He couldn't take the pain of living without the one pony he didn't hate, rather than me. So I saw him reach down under his bed with his two front hooves and take out what seemed to be a briefcase. I then saw him open it and take out an object. From there, my heart stopped as I could see what he had been trying to do."

"Out from the briefcase came a simple handgun as my father lifted it into the air with one hoof. In the other hoof had been ammo as he placed it into the slot and loaded it. Before doing anything else, he put the metal ring near the trigger in his mouth, bit down hard on it, and yanked. This caused the ring to break off, allowing the trigger to be pulled with his own hoof."

"Holding the gun up to his head, he looked around his bedroom once more until he noticed me outside the door, peering in through the cracks. At that point, I had tears falling down my eyes, begging him not to do it, but all he did was look at me with those cold, dead eyes. All that managed to come out of his mouth were the words "I'm sorry". With that, he pulled the trigger of the gun. I had closed my eyes at the moment, shielding them from the horror just a few feet away from me. "

"When I had opened them, what I saw was none other than the corpse of my father lying on the damaged wooden floor. With that, I quickly opened the door fully and dashed right in to get a better glimpse of the situation. The thing as a whole had been terrible. In my father's head had been a large gash that went through his entire head. Blood lurked out as if it had been a waterfall. My father's eyes had been slightly open as his mouth was fully shut. The first thing I did was check to see if he had been still alive or not. Placing a hoof over his chest, I felt no beating or pumping of any sort. Tears streamed out of my eyes even more violently than before as I realized my father had been dead. That I had not only lost my mother, but also my father too. I had now been an orphan, a sad, desperate, tearful orphan. I couldn't face the facts of my father being dead, nor did I want to."

The group fell silent as Justine continued her story. A tear began lurking out of her eye as she went on.

"Ever since that tragic day, I've been running this castle. Someponys got to look over it, after all. But what makes it harder is that before emit father committed suicide, he used to experiment a lot on his subjects, and often, they would go mutant or something, when this happened, we would put them in a cell underground that was protected by my father's magic. But ever since he passed away, the barrier for the cell broke away and all the experiments broke loose. The good thing is that they can't stand sunlight, but the bad thing is they won't leave the castle. All I do every day is hide around, hoping not to get found and captured. Lucky for my, your little friend came just in time." Justine announced, pointing a hoof towards Blur. "I would've been minced meat if it wasn't for him."

"But, that doesn't even add up." Snake exclaimed. "Why did your father conduct experiments on innocent creatures, INCLUDING your mother? And out of all, where is Discord in this entire scheme?"

"Were here." A low-voiced Justine had answered. In front of her had been a gigantic wooden room that had been around thirty feet high and forty feet long. On the floor had been the same luxurious carpet that was seen at the beginning of the castle. Over on the ceiling had been a gigantic chandelier made out of solid gold that lit the entire room.

Over at the end of the room had been on large throne that had been occupied. It had been a large, pony-like creature with a deer antler on the right of his head, a goat horn on the left of his head, one long fang hanging out of his mouth, different-sized pupils as eyes, a snake tongue, and a beard hanging off his chin. He has the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat. In addition, he has a bat's right wing, a Pegasus' left wing, and a snake's tail.

The beast as a whole had been a terrifying creature as it sat humbly on its throne and looked at the gang as if he had known them all his life. Everypony began cringing as Rainbow Dash spoke up.

"Discord," She said softly to herself. "I found you.

"Done with another chapter. Just to let you know, now is the beginning of the contest. Before anything, let me go over the rules once more. Your objective is to write the next chapter of this fic. The minimum amount of words is 2,000 and the maximum is 5,000. What you are writing about is the battle between the gang and Discord. You can't go any farther than the battle itself. Let me just begin by saying you can only use characters that already confronted him (you can't use Fluttershy/Shadow, Dusk, Thunder Ice, Twilight, or Justine since she can't fight). The good thing is that you can have any character defeat Discord if you want. (ex: if your OC is Strife, you can have him defeat Discord). Just remember that this is a team effort and that you have to have the other characters at least help defeat him. Also, you cannot add any new characters or anything. Just use what you have. Still, intense gore and sex in a big no no. This is meant to be an action chapter, not a romance one (although there will be those later on). No character deaths are allowed too. In addition, you can also add any song you want to the chapter. Just post a link in it. Just to let you know, the chapter may be subjected to change if I need to add or take out bits or if I want to add or remove a song.

Now that we covered the rules, let's get to everyponys favorite part: the prizes. The winner will not only get their chapter published, but also will receive a PMV of their choice. They'll be able to pick any song that hasn't been made into a PMV yet and give them to me and…. Out comes the PMV. Simple enough.

The due dates for the chapter would probably be around the next five days. I'd say on Wednesday or Thursday (depending what mood I'm in). When you complete the chapter PM (private message) it to me.

Good luck everypony, and I hope to see what you truly are capable of writing.

(BTW: thanks to DWhay on fanfiction for editing)