Death City

And now the time you’ve all been waiting for: BATTLE TIME!!! Let me start off by saying that this chapter happened to be done by DarkWold over on FIMFiction! I salute him for entering the contest as he had been the grateful soul who won the contest and got his chapter published. (as if anypony else entered) With that said, we shall begin.

Chapter 30: Confrontations With Chaos

Hang Castle part B - Sonic Heroes (open likn in new tab)

“Well, hello there! It seems like its’ been so long, hasn’t it?” Discord began, his voice echoing off of the stone walls.

“Discord! You… you’ll have to pay for all the damage that you’ve done!” Rainbow shouted out at the top of her lungs.

“Ah, so THAT’S why you’re here. Well, I am sorry to say that whatever you were planning to do will not end well.” Snake commented.

“Why, why have you done this to us?” Rarity asked with a distressed tone.

“Why? Why, my dear, it’s quite obvious if you use that worthless head of yours. You all hate me, so in return, I hate you! I just, upped the ante. You know, a little payback?” Discord’s words flew through the stuffy air like water down a stream. “How foolish had you been to actually think some pathetic pieces of scrap metal and gems could actually keep me imprisoned in stone for so long. It had been a futile mistake that won’t be your last.”

“You’re getting payback by KILLING everypony in sight?!” Rainbow asked as she yelled out the question.

“Well, basically, yes. Seemed like the most chaotic thing to do at the time. Still does, now that I think about it. Why, did something bad happen? Somepony you know die? Too bad I wasn’t around to see it all go down at the power of mercy and…” Discord had been cut off by the sudden action.

Rainbow Dash was on the verge of bursting in tears, but the only thing keeping her in control was what usually pushed ponies out of control: Pure rage.  She rushed forward towards Discord with as much speed as possible. Discord did not flinch or move in any way. All of a sudden, an invisible force field appeared in front of him, resulting in Rainbow running head first into it at full speed. The impact caused Rainbow to be instantly knocked unconscious as she slumped back to the floor motionless.

“Rainbow!” Rarity shouted out as she levitated her back over towards the group of friends. Snake, almost going over the edge, tried to rush Discord as well, but was held back by Raymond.

“LET GO OF ME!” Snake called out as he tried to break free. “I CAN DO THIS!”

“Don’t be stubborn.” Raymond responded. “You’ll just end up the same as Rainbow over there!” He said as he pointed a hoof towards the unconscious cyan mare. It seemed to cool Snake down slightly.

“Well, this is rather interesting indeed…” Discord started. “I must say, this is just like old times! Let’s bring back something familiar, shall we?”

He snapped his claws together and the room began to expand at an alarming rate until the sides hadn’t been visible anymore. Then, walls began to fall from the ceiling, separating each pony by themselves. They extended all the way to the roof, as to prevent anyone flying over.

“Look familiar to any of you?” He called out.

“No…” Applejack thought out loud. It was a maze. Just like the maze when they originally fought Discord in the Canterlot gardens.

“This will be fun, and don’t worry!” Discord called out again. “At least I am not taking your horns and wings this time! But those who don’t have them, well, all I say to you is good luck.”

“What the HELL is going on!?” Snake called out, followed by similar shouts of distress and panic from everypony else. He had never been with the mane 6 the first time they confronted Discord, meaning this had been completely new to him.

“It’s a maze!” Rarity called out to the others.

“A maze? What do you mean a maze!?” Snake responded, a hint of rage in his voice.

“She means a maze you dumbass!” Raymond called out from somewhere distance. “You know, wander around aimlessly until you find the exit?”

“We need to figure out a way to get to the other side!” Lightning yelled out.

“Oh, you don’t say?” Strife retorted.

“Um… what do I do?” Pinkie’s voice cut in.

“Just stay there. You’ll end up being more trouble than help!” Raymond called back.

“Wait, where is Rainbow?” Applejack called out from somewhere in front of Rarity. The entire place had been in a catastrophic frenzy as everypony screamed across the corridor.

“Miss Sleepy-Head is over here with me!” Pinkie called out from somewhere.

“You know, It’d be a lot more beneficial if you get a move on!” Discord’s voice boomed through the maze. “I got a feeling you all aren’t alone in there!” His voice trailed off into a distant laughter. Then, silence fell amongst the group. After what seemed like ages, Discord spoke up again.

“In other words, that means go!”

At the same time, each one of the ponies galloped up down their corresponding part of the maze. Pinkie tried to pick up Rainbow, who was still out cold with a giant bruise over the top of her head.

“Come on, you!” She said as she lifted her up onto her back and began to trot off into the maze. “We’re outta here!”

Each of the ponies continued on forward as they got deeper and deeper into the maze.

“Dammit!” Snake yelled out in frustration as he hit his 3rd dead end. “Is there just no way out of this damned thing?”

“It’s only been around 30 seconds!” Seamus called out to him. He had been right across from the green Pegasus. All that blocked the two was a giant wall that uplifted itself towards the ceiling of the room.

“Yeah, 30 valuable seconds! Seconds count right now!” Snake yelled sarcastically. “We need to hurry the hell up and get out!” Snake put that fact aside and began galloping in the opposing direction that he traveled in previously.

“Maybe if you tried to actually examine the maze instead of just rushing forward, you would have better luck.” Seamus responded. “And by the way, we have wings, why don’t we use them?”

“Hey, get off my back!” Snake mentioned. “You can try that, but you will be stuck in here forever! And as for the usage of wings, it’s pointless! The walls are too high to fly over! We’re just gonna have to play by the rules in order to escape this death trap!”

“Guys! Just shut up!” Lightning’s voice called out, although it was very faint. “Talking isn’t going to get either of you anywhere!”

Before a response could be given, a bone-chilling scream resonated throughout the maze, causing everyone to stop and fall silent.

“Who was that?” Seamus called out, but there was no response. “Hello? Snake? Rarity? Anypony?”

“Shut up!” Snake retorted. He was trying to listen carefully as to where it came from. After about a minute, another scream echoed out. This time, it was slightly fainter.

“Ok, it’s moving away from us.” Snake said as he began to fly off into the next pathway.

“Wait, what about Rarity and the rest of the gang? They could be in trouble!” Seamus yelled.

“And WE aren’t in trouble?” Snake’s fury began increased every second as he grew anxious to escape the maze.

“Well…” Seamus couldn’t think of the answer.

“Exactly! The only thing we can do now is to have high hopes of getting out!” Snake responded. In hopes of ending the conversation that was burning valuable time, he galloped off without waiting for any more questions.

Seamus stood in place for a moment, thinking of what to do. Ultimately, he eventually gave in and began to head down the path he was on at a faster pace this time, taking Snake’s advice.

After a couple of minutes, Rarity found herself on the run from some unknown creature following her through the maze. It continued to make a high pitched screaming sound that pierced the air. It looked a lot like that zombie-pony that they had encountered earlier. Its jaw sank low, exposing its mouth as it wobbled back and forth while moving. She turned around and shot a bolt of magic at it, but it quickly jumped out of the way, barely hindering his advance. The zombie-pony’s quick reflexes made him nearly impossible to harm.

“Help! Somepony, help!” Rarity called out, but no response came back to her. After a couple more turns, she ended up at a dead end. She turned herself around to see the zombie pony slowly approaching her, as though it was mocking her. Rarity shot another bolt of magic, but it simply moved out of the way with lightning fast reflexes. As a last ditch effort, Rarity placed a shield between her and the zombie-pony. At first, it seemed to be working rather well. The zombie-pony did not know how to react exactly, and kept running into the shield head first in an effort to break it. She knew she couldn’t keep the shield up forever and would eventually need to rest.

“Help!” She called out again. This time, she received more than just a response. Behind the zombie-pony, Strife came out from behind a corner and tackled the zombie-pony to the ground with great force. Rarity broke the shield and quickly galloped away to a safer position. Strife had been putting up a great fight, throwing hoofs into the zombie-pony relentlessly.

“Hit it with your magic when I say to, okay!?” Strife called out to her, but did not wait for a response. He then took out a small dagger from hid side and gripped it tightly in his left hoof. In the meantime, he had pinned down the zombie-pony to ensure there would be no escaping. Strife had then brought his hoof down lower until it fiercely connected to the zombie-pony’s rough, leathery skin. With great force, Strife pulled the dagger down the chest of the enemy, leaving a lager incision onto the previously deceased beast. As the zombie-pony tried with all its efforts to wiggle loose, it had been pointless. Strife had already cut a large gash in between his chest, exposing a heap load of solid blood as well as what seemed to be organs as well. Strife then threw the enemy against the nearest wall and shouted for Rarity to fire her own magic.

As if on cue, Rarity shot a bolt of magic directly at the zombie-ponies wound over its chest. Before the abomination had time to react, the bolt smashed into its chest, causing it to swell up. The zombie-pony began to shake violently as it had malfunctioned like a robot. Crashing into the walls and floor, the enemy couldn’t think straight, and soon fell to the ground helplessly, signaling that it had been defeated.

“Th-Thank you…” Rarity stammered out. She had been breathing heavily for that sudden use of magic. It drained a large portion of her energy as she gasped for more air.

“No problem, but we got to go! I think I found the way out!” Strife responded as he grasped Rarity’s hoof with his own and pulled Rarity along with him back into the deep confines of the maze.

“Ugh, wha…? Where am I?” Rainbow muttered as she rubbed the top of her head, causing a searing pain to shoot through her body. “AHH! What, happened!?”

“You’re awake! Finally, I was starting to get a little tired of carrying you around!” Pinkie responded in a rather cheery tone. She kneeled down to allow Rainbow to get off of her back. She had a little trouble standing at first, but Pinkie helped keep her standing straight.

“Thanks…” Rainbow said, still rubbing the top of her head.

“Any idea on how to get out?” Pinkie asked. :I mean, this place is too dark to see anything. Too many walls if you ask me. Who builds a maze in order to trap someone anyway? Seems like a dumb idea, don’t you think?”

“I just woke up, I don’t know where we are!” Suddenly, Rainbow stumbled up to her hooves again. “Hold on a sec, where… where are we?”

“Oh, I forgot! You didn’t hear! Well, we are in a maze because that meany, Discord, trapped us all here. Thought, it would be funny or something, like a reference to when we first fought him in the Canterlot Gardens. I don’t know what he sees in it though, doesn’t really seem that funny to me! Just what is he trying to achieve by doing this?”

After hearing this, Rainbow immediately turned around to check and see if her wings were still there. Seeing that they were, she relaxed a little bit.

“Yeah, he didn’t take wings and horns this time around. Don’t know why.” Rainbow sighed aloud. “Well, we need to go. If this is just like it was at Canterlot Gardens, he will try and manipulate us like he did before. This time though, we will be expecting it, and I WONT let him do it again!” Rainbow announced proudly.

“Okie-Dokie-Lokie!” Pinkies cheery voice had been as usual.

“Let’s go! We need to find the others!” Rainbow shouted out as they both turned and began to trot off into the maze.

“This maze has too many dead ends, if you ask me.” Raymond mumbled to himself. “Is this amusing, or what?”

“Raymond? Is that you?” A voice called out in the distance. He remained quiet though, not sure if it was a trick or not.

“Raymond?! Anypony there?!” It called out again. The voice was a little more recognizable though. It sounded so familiar to him.

“Seamus, that you?” Raymond finally responded.

“Raymond? Where are you? I lost track of Snake!” Seamus shouted.

“Don’t know,  maybe in a maze.” Raymonds sarcasm had been activated. “All I see beside me are walls.”

Seamus had soon gone quiet all of a sudden.

“Seamus?” Raymond called out, but there was no response. All of a sudden, a hoof came out from behind Raymond and pulled him to the ground. Raymond was about to start cursing for the sudden action, but someone shoved their hoof over his mouth, preventing him from speaking

“Shhhh! Stay quiet! It’s a trick.” The pony behind him said. He instantly recognized the voice. It had been Snake.

“How do you know?” Raymond whispered back. Snake had gently removed his hoof over Raymond’s mouth.

“’Cause Seamus is right behind me.” He responded. Raymond turned and looked behind Snake, and sure enough, Seamus was standing behind one of the corners.

“Raymond? Where did you go?” The imitation of Seamus called out again, but it sounded much closer.

“What do we do?” Seamus whispered to them.

“Nothing, we wait for it to go away. If it finds us…” Snake began, but before he could finish, another one of those demented zombie-ponies appeared around the corner in front of them.

“Nevermind!” Snake yelled out as he rushed forward and crashed into the side of it, causing it to stumble to the ground. It got up with amazing speed and returned the favor by crashing into Snake. Raymond ran forward as well to help Snake, while Seamus stayed a little ways back watching. Even though it was two on one, the zombie-pony fought back with tremendous strength and agility, almost outmatching both Snake and Raymond. It had been a tricky battle for both Snake and Raymond since they didn’t have any weapons to work with.

Eventually, the two of them were able to come up with a way to confuse it by having one of them run at it head on to distract it while the other flew up and came down on its back. There wasn’t much room in the in the path, so they had to make very precise turns and actions or else they would run into the walls. Finally, they were able to knock it down once more, having it fly over towards Seamus. It hit the ground with a very loud thud, but was almost up instantly. It turned towards Seamus, who reacted by turning around and bucking it straight between the eyes. It fell backwards where Snake finished it off by taking out his sincere weapon from around his waist: The Golden Ray.

Aiming precisely at the head, Snake had shot it out, causing the head of the zombie-pony to literally implode. Blood and gore leaked out of its neck as Snake admired at what he had just done.

“Heh, I forgot I even had this in the first place.” Snake said, polishing his weapon.

“Idiot.” Raymond mumbled to himself in the meantime.

“There, it’s dead. Can we go now?” Seamus asked.

“I agree, we need to find the exit, or at least everypony else.” Raymond responded.

“Fine, let’s go.” Snake agreed.

“Hello? Who’s there?” Another voice called out. The group turned around with a start, prepared for another attack. After a few seconds, out walked Justine. “Oh, thanks goodness I was able to find somepony else! Even though I am more than capable of finding my own way out of this maze.”

“Sure you are.” Raymond rolled his eyes at the red mare.

“What are you doing? We told you to stay back!” Snake hissed at her.

“Well, you try to stand by yourself in the middle of a maze while hearing screams and yelling everywhere around you! I freaked out and ran off, okay?” Justine stated.

“Ugh, who cares?! We need to get a move on!” Raymond shouted out to the group.

“Yeah, besides, there is strength in numbers.” Seamus pointed out.

“For the love of…. ugh, fine! But stay close to us and out of our way, got it? You trail behind or decide to go off on your own, we aren’t coming back for you!” Snake responded with a hint of anger. Justine merely nodded her head in response. With that, they all set off.

After about 5 minutes and another 10 dead ends, they heard hoof steps echo nearby. Each of them stopped dead in their tracks, listening carefully for the location of the sound. It kept getting louder and louder until it seemed it was right on top of them. Each began to spin around frantically looking in every direction. From behind them, they heard a voice call out to them.

“Hey, guys! Over here!” the voice rang.

They all turned around to see Strife and Rarity standing several yards away at another intersection. Both groups ran towards each other and met one another half way.

“Well, who are we missing now?” Strife asked.

After a quick head count, Rarity gave the answer.

“If I’m not forgetting anyone, the only 6 we are missing are Rainbow, Pinkie, Lightning, Blur, that DJ guy, and Applejack.”

“We can try to look for them on our way to the exit, which none of us have seemed to have found yet.” Raymond said.

“Not true, I think I figured out how to get out.” Strife said, causing everyone to turn to him for an explanation.

“How?” Seamus asked.

“Well, there seems to be a pattern to the maze, and not just random walls here and there. I always find hallways that continue for about 10 yards and then turn right, followed by another left turn that goes for about 10 more yards, and repeat.”

“So, you think that it leads out?” Raymond asked.

“I’m not sure, but it’s the only thing that appears to have order to it.” Strife replied, positive of his assumptions.

“Well, we are talking about the lord of chaos here…” Snake pointed out.

“We don’t have anything better to go off of. I say give it a try.” Rarity defended.

“Oh, what the hell. There isn’t anything better to try, anyway.” Raymond said, showing his approval of the plan. “Lead the way, Strife.”

Once again, now with a much larger group, they set off in hopes that Strife’s idea would lead them to freedom. After 10 minutes, the paths began to widen out further until they found themselves outside the maze in the same stone room they started with. Discords throne sat lonely in the middle of it, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Yes! We did it!” Seamus cheered.

“Where is Discord?” Snake asked scanning the room intently.

”Well, perhaps you all aren’t as dumb and foolish as I had originally presumed.” Discords voice boomed out, causing everypony to jump.

“Discord! Show yourself you coward!” Snake yelled out. They all turned around to see Discord relaxing on the previously empty throne. He had teleported himself there with ease as he looked at the gang, or what had been left of it, with trickery in his eyes.

“I honestly am surprised to see you made it out in one piece. I was expecting you all to be dead within the first couple of minutes. By the way, where are your other friends? They seem to be still missing. It would be such a shame if something were to , say, happen to them, would you not agree?”

“You won’t touch them!” Rarity shouted out, something she did very rarely. Her horn lit up and she sent out a burst of magic at Discord, only to have it dissipate as Discord held out a claw and had the beam literally burned in front of him.

“You see, I learned a few tricks her and there while you were all away. One of which is how to control some simple magic without the need of a horn, such as to stop the flow of magic itself. Looks like you can count unicorn magic out!”

Out from behind him, Rainbow Dash jumped out and tackled Discord to the ground while he was distracted, followed by Applejack charging forward as well, while Pinkie galloped over towards the other group. Lightning, Blur, and DJ  Fiiasco all came out normally as they stood at the back fo the group, watching as Rainbow charged towards Discord.

Seeing Discord caught off guard, Snake, Raymond, and Strife both shot off towards the fight that had broken out. Even though they outnumber Discord, he was by far more powerful than any of them. Rarity used her magic to shoot some bolts at him, but most were defected or missed entirely. Snake and Rainbow kept dealing some good blows here and there, but to no avail. Each one of them failed to do any serious damage. Discord just knocked them out of the way if they got to close.

“It’s no use… we can’t beat him!” Applejack said between deep breaths.

“Well, how was it that you conquered him in the last encounter?” Raymond asked, panting as well.

“We used the Elements of Harmony, but we don’t have all of them. We’re missing Twilight and Fluttershy.” Rainbow pointed out.

“Well, is there any other way to beat him? We can’t keep doing tiny little blows here and there forever!” Seamus acknowledged.

“You don’t say?” Strife began making fun of what Seamus had just said.

“I think I have an idea.” Rarity spoke out. “Keep him busy!”

“No prob!” Raymond responded as he darted back towards Discord and knocked out one of his legs.

Rarity turned to Seamus who was standing over with Justine and Pinkie, watching the situation unfold.

“Seamus, you have got to stop Discord! You are the only one who is powerful enough!”

“Wha… me?! How?! I barely have any skill with magic or flying. How am I, an ungrateful alicorn, supposed to beat a God?!”

“You are an Alicorn! Alicorn’s are gifted with powerful magic at birth! Your magic is the only magic here to stop him, or at least trap him! The Princess’s did it long ago before we were even around!” Rarity yelled.

“But, those were the Princess’s! I am not like them!” Seamus pointe out.

“You’re right! You’re not like them. You’re BETTER than them” Rarity proved. “Just think, you were trained by the most experienced souls of all of Equestria! There isn’t even a doubt that you can’t bring a God to his own knees!”

A thousand emotions began to swim around in Seamus’s head. Moments of panic, dread, confusion, courage, sadness, and many more all releasing themselves at the same time.

“I… I can try!” Seamus responded as he took a couple steps forward. He could see that his friends were beginning to get tired, and Discord was slowly overwhelming them. He dug his hooves into the ground and pointed his horn at Discord. He tried his hardest to form a spell, but each time, it only resulted in a faint spark from the top of his horn. He tried again and again, but to no avail.

“I… I can’t do it!” He shouted back at Rarity.

“If you keep thinking that, you won’t!” Rarity called back.

He turned back around. The entire fate of Equestria was right here, right now. It could be saved or destroyed, all depending on his actions and the actions of his friends. It was a feeling that he hadn’t ever had to feel until now. It seemed to give him a better understanding, a purpose. Once again, he dug in his hooves, and pointed the horn one more time at Discord. Using every bit of energy he had in him, he focused it all into his horn. It began to glow with an intensely bright light that got brighter and brighter. Seeing this happening, everypony began to get out of the way, catching Discord by surprise.

“Wait, what?” He said as he noticed the giant aurora over Seamus’s head.

In an instant, a giant beam of light shot out heading directly for Discord. He put up a shield to block it, but the shield instantly shattered under the force of the spell, causing him to be pinned to the wall by it. Seamus didn’t know what had been happening, only that he had an urge to keep doing whatever he was doing. He took a couple steps forward to get closer and closer to Discord. The spell became stronger and stronger until it began to act like the Elements of Harmony. Slowly, Discord began to turn to stone, just like he had done the past two times he had been defeated.

“NO! How is this possible!? Doesn’t matter! Just because you stopped one doesn’t mean you stopped all!” Discord announced.

“What do you mean?!” Seamus barked at him.

“Heh,” Discord began. “In the night’s sky, there was only one. His time for ruling has just begun. He is the one who holds the key to all this action. Saving him will only cause a chain reaction. The one in blue is the key to all. If you fail to save him, all will fall! Just remember this: one can be saved, only, from a kiss…” From there, the stone covering had reached the tip of Discords head, freezing him in a solid layer of stone. He fell to the ground as the hard stone collided with the stone ground beneath him.

The spell Seamus was holding up broke, flinging him back and sending Discord, now completely covered in stone, to the ground. Feeling light headed and dizzy, Seamus passed out on the cold stone floor. He could make out a faint conversation before he went under.

“Is he dead? Did he get him?” A voice had been emanated from the back for the group

“Yeah, I think he did!” Another voice called out.

“What did he mean by what he just said earlier?” Seamus thought to himself. “Just remember this: one can be saved, only, from a kiss.” The words rang through his mind as if a bell had gone off in his head.

Suddenly, there was a crumbling sound as everypony turned around to see what it had been. The stone walls of the maze began to sink down to the ground as the maze, as a whole, disappeared slowly. Once all the ash cleared up, what stood in front of the group had been two ponies: One was a lavender unicorn while the other had been a dark blue one. It took a while to realize two the two had been, but Pinkie had been the one to realize first,

“TWILIGHT!” She screamed before running up to her and giving her a large hug with her hoof. All Thunder did was watch from a distance as he began to back away slowly, trying to avoid a hug from the pink pony.

“What happened here?” Twilight asked, looking around to see the ash and debris from the already collapsed walls of the stone maze as well as the stone figure of Discord lying on the floor next to the throne.

“Oh, nothing much.” Seamus replied. “But there’s something I need to tell you guys. Something that I, myself, don’t clearly understand yet. And that’s where you guys come in.”

Done with the 30th chapter. I must say, this was a perfect timeing to put the first boss confratation.I’d also like to wsay that I’m around 1/5 done of the story, maybe even more! The song used in this chapter was the Hang Castle part B theme from Sonic Heroes. I needed some sort of scary theme that wasn’t too sacry, and this song fit the bill perfectly. Also, I’d again like to thank DarkWolf on FIMFiction for writing most of the chapter. His writing is more than good and I suggest that you read more of his stories (if he has any). This chapter was composed of him doing 75% of the work and me doing 25% (so teher are some references of my work in certain places. Also, I’m not gonna be here for the next 5 days, so I won’t be updating for a while. Now, I’d like for everyone to comment and like this story if you want more!!!

YEAH!!!