Discorded Relapse

After Discord had overthrown Princess Celestia and Luna from power there was, needless to say, chaos everywhere: the night was 4 hours long and the day was 4 hours long, and the two cycled like that. The clouds seem to never change its hideous color, as Rarity would have said, "Those shades of light blue and purple should only be used as highlights against that hideous hazy orange and chartreuse". Rainbow Dash chuckled weakly, smiling a bit remembering her old friend's dramatic antics.

She hasn't seen the Fashionista in 2 years, since Discord-, Lord Discord thought it would be impeccable to separate the Elements as far away as he could. Not too far though, for some personal, Machiavellian reason, either it was for the torturing of the Mane6's spirits; allowing them to know their friends were in danger, but close by, thus supporting the feelings of Hope... only to be crushed by the day to day mental and physical lacerations. Or just because Discords' a demented soul, bound by heinous demons to torture every content soul his discrepant body comes across… Probably both.

Rainbow Dash was the last of the Mane6 that remained in Ponyville now; she could only wonder where the other Elements are. Hopefully relatively safe... Hopefully relatively still alive.

Rainbow Dash decided it was time to get out of her uncomfortable bed loft and she did so achingly. She haven't had a solid meal in days, the hunger was starting to show on her body. Her ribs stuck out against her once beautiful coat of cyan, and her once sparkling magenta eyes are dull, from exhaustion and hopelessness.

She walked outside her hut where Sugar Sweet Corner used to be, and looked at the familiar ruins: destroyed or distorted buildings were scrambled randomly around, there were decaying, dead bodies in a single shallow grave just a few hundred meters from her towards Everfree Forest, which now fully surrounds the pitiful town. The sun never shown through the ugly clouds, it just illuminated them which casted a dull, orange glow on the town. The town was filthy from two years of toxic fumes that floated out of the clouds above; the deadened grass and vegetation couldn't replenish the air with oxygen; the winds that flow through the Everfree forest was the only savior of lungs here. Hope, forever lost upon this town of lost dreams, ponies lost in a world that was not safe, and lost friends who are in question; where were Rainbow Dash's friends?

A tear dropped from her right eye as she soaked in the sight, though clichéd, and used to her now, it still ushered out a sorrowful tear.

What they need now is a hero.

Smoke and the horrendous stench of rotting flesh and muscle filled the frightened Hedgehog's nose as he fumbled blindly around in pitch black darkness. He could even smell his own fear as it was potent enough to cut through this horrendous, stomach wrenching stench.

Where was he?

Sonic frantically ran and ran through a musky Black Forest for what seemed like hours, dodging its spiny hulls until he reached a clearing. Suddenly a large red outline formed in a circle around him. Sonic stopped running and looked around at the circle; guard up, his senses tuned to pick up the slightest challenge of danger. And he did as a sickeningly familiar smell wafted in his nose and he breathed in deeply.

Tainted Blood.

The thick, red liquid began to pour seemingly out of nowhere as objects rose from the ground on the edges of the circle at equal distances from each pedestal. On each pedestal a figure rose, covered in filth: three butterflies, then three apples, then three balloons, followed by three diamonds, a lightning bolt of three colors, and finally a big star shaped object.

A deep, sadistic spell of laughter erupted from above accompanied by a lion's paw that came down as a fist, straight towards the Blue Speedster. Sonic now paralyzed from fear tried his best to run but he couldn't, he wouldn't.

The mighty paw crushed him and Sonic was yanked out of his dream abruptly feeling a throbbing pain all over his muscles.

Sonic stared up at his slowly revolving ceiling fan for a couple of seconds as he tried to catch his breath; he panted heavily. "What was that?" He thought to himself,"Th-those Symbols, the blood..." He could still feel it's hot, stickiness on his fur and he shivered. He ran the details through his mind for some while his head started to pain him.

Sonic made his way down the white, carpeted stairs groggily to the simple, modern kitchen of his house. He rubbed his temples while groaning as he felt a hot, nice cup of Joe would wake him up. As he walked by the refrigerator towards his private espresso machine before a bright yellow sticky note caught his eye.

"There's a triple shot, black espresso mixed into large black coffee; two sugars on the coffee table in the living room, come down to basement quick."

"What would I do without you, Tails?" Sonic muttered to himself smiling and now currently making his way out of the kitchen to pick up his cup of wake up juice, then to his basement.

Upon entering he took a throat warming sip of the coffee and he could hear the sound of a welding torch going off and a sound of something being hammered into place. And he was right, his best bud, Tails, a Golden Kitsune with twin tails, was busy working on some sort of device, most likely about to blow the house apart, or split the cosmos up... Again.

There was a large rock of quartz jaggedly cut into a rough looking torus and there were multiple lines of hoses and pipes injecting some sort of gas that miraculously materialized psychedelic luminescent vapor at the center of the cut quartz. The quartz pulsed with energy, its pink champagne color oscillating as if it were alive, ushering out a steady heartbeat.

Sonic dog whistled and rocked on his toes to the back to his heels as he took on the crazy project that was in front of him. "Whatcha got here?" He asked then sipping his Joe.

Tails lifted the welder's mask from his face and half smiled at Sonic, his eyes were bloodshot and there were huge bags under his eyes. His lips were also chapped and his fur was an utter mess, but from Sonic's perspective he looks right at home. "Look at this Sonic, I've finally made a stable; hyper-quantum-physics' number-one taboo; a WORKING wormhole." He explained quickly and obviously proud of himself and rightfully so.

Creating a wormhole is one thing, creating a WORKING, STABLE wormhole is another; It's so rare that the only other being before that have accomplished this feat is Eggman and N.I.C.O.L.E'S creators (that's another story that I cannot bring myself to do)... But creating wormholes are a serious taboo, a should-be-but-is-not illegal practice that can have some devastating and cataclysmic outcomes that can lead to time warping, parallel universes entwining or fusing with other timelines and time and space as we know it could be wrenched out of the Creator's hands and tied into constrictor knot. The bottom line is. DO NOT create wormholes/time travel vehicles/devices or the sort. Besides, N.I.C.O.L.E made that very clear. (again, another story)

Sonic was clearly astounded, mouth slightly agape and eyes fixed on the wormhole device, and the quartz torus seemed to stare back at him as it "breathed". While soaking in the spectacle Sonic thought hard about going through the most acceptable, and mature way to handle this. After a few seconds he regained his composure and a serious demeanor washed over him, not wanting to put the whole world at risk, again. "Shut it down." The Blur said simply, as he took a sip of coffee.

The kitsune almost ripped in half by disbelief, "Are you kidding me?! No! - SONIC I will not do that now! I'm so close to finishing it! This could work, I know it will!" Desperation was thick in his voice as he pleaded with Sonic. "Just give me a chance! I have this under control and plus, this is a scientific feat that NO ONE, besides tubby," he said referring to Eggman, "have ever accomplished before in the whole world, in the universe even!"

Sonic face-palmed as he wanted to do the right thing, but avoid hurting his bro. He hated when he gets this way and he hated telling him to do something like this, knowing this must be a magnificent feat for him, but Physics number one rule is do NOT tamper with Time and Space. Sonic then put down his mug, empty now, and sat down in a chair nearby.

He put his un-gloved hands in his face and shook his head and sighed. "Just, just don't operate it, just not until you know FOR CERTAIN that it WILL NOT create some type of cataclysmic effect." Sonic told his friend carefully and putting emphasis on key words in attempt to grind it through his friend's stubborn mind yet genius mind, sometimes he wonder if he should even bother.

Sonic then started to walk back up stairs and Tails looked at him, silently thanking him with huge gracious, blue eyes. Sonic opened up the door to the basement and got ready to step out. "I'm going for a run, catch yah later!" And with that he was gone.

Twilight, the former princess and proud mentor of the young sorrowfully followed a squad of dusty ponies to work; she had her head low, perpetually nowadays, as she made her way to what is without a doubt the LARGEST, most cumbersome statue ever created.

Since Lord Discord came to power he ordered a colossal, no, Herculean sized masterpiece of a statue of him in his "noble" "honor". The statue is to be made with the finest quality gems and materials. Most of the unicorns of the once called nation of Equestria, now named Land Discord, tend to carving into the diamonds and rare gems via magic. Sounds easy enough until your horn is overheating and keeping up a simple laser spell is fatiguing your already frail body to its limits.

On the way to the site there was already unicorns laboring away in the dry heat being mentally tormented and whipped mercilessly by tall, conjured up evil souls that had no face; Shadow Guards. Their cold red eyes pierced the flank of Twilight's; she could bet her horn that they're just so eager to whip her, she knew it, for spiritless beings of the ground would have nothing but ignorant hatred flowing through their being.

An exhausting couple of minutes later Twilight and a platoon of worn down workers made their way about five hundred feet into the air to a scaffold right in front of the massive, and rather stupid face of the statue.

Two painful, weary hours later of constant laser cutting into the diamond to be inserted the Commanding General Military hat; it was time for her 5 minute break. He horn was sore to the point she'd thought it'll break off. She leaned against the massive stone she'd been carving in for the last two hours, fanning her sore horn in attempt to cool it. She estimated she was at least a five hundred feet in the air and she began to look down. Suddenly a thud sounded below her as a worker suddenly collapsed out of fatigue and most likely fatigue and hunger. Her body was dangerously close to the edge and Twilight felt her eyes tear up, looking closer she recognized the worker's face. She was a Blue mare, her mane was blue and blanched, her horn was now swollen red, and her cutie mark, though crossed out and scarred over, she could still see what it was. A sand timer used to blazon itself proudly on that flank.

Twilight wept softly for her lost friend, Colgate, as she laid on the edge of the scaffold. The, used-to-be Princess began to charge up magic in her horn to prevent her from falling off the scaffold but a chicken-foot like hand reached out and pinched her charging horn as if he was putting out a candle flame.

"Ah, ah, ah", the deep voice cooed "What's the fun in that?"

And before her, the body fell from the immense height of the scaffolding and blundered towards the ground on other unsuspecting ponies working.

Tails finished welding the last pipe into the Wormhole Space relativity portal into intergalactic parallel universes. (WSRP-IPU). Tails stood up wearily from his work and smiled approvingly at it as he started to take off his welders' gloves and face shield. The intelligent Kitsune then scribbled some important notes down into his custom smartphone and prepared to finally get some well-deserved sleep, being that he'd been working on this for over 30 hours straight. He tied his engineers' jump suit around his waist with now just the suspenders across his bare chest (well, besides the fur). The yellow fox yawned widely as he slithered to the comfortable black leather couch in the living room. Finally, some well-deserved sleep.

Well...

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

Tails bared his fangs and uttered a slight growl as his eyes shot open and scored the door with his sharp, highly annoyed gaze for a couple of seconds, ignoring the unknown visitors, hoping they'll leave soon, for his sake anyways.

The door was knocked a couple more times then there was a pause.

A long pause.

*RIIIINNGGG...RIIIIIINNGGG...RIIIIINNNGGG...*

The sleep deprived and irritable fox groaned angrily and turned around to face the couch he was laying on and put a pillow over his head. ALL HE WANTED WAS SOME DAMN PEACE!

The phone eventually stopped ringing and there was another long pause.

An heart dropping epiphany washed over Tails as an icy chill as he realized what was probably going to happen next.

WHERE WAS HIS CELL PHONE!?

He spotted it on the counter near the kitchen, which was also directly near the front door.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" He screamed silently, mouthing the exaggerated word as he sprang up from his resting position and bolted to the phone as if all fatigue was forgotten.

He finally reached the phone and held down the power button; a shower of relief now on his face.

"Are you sure you want to power off?" His phone asked him...Tails couldn't believe this. He tapped yes.

"Do you want to exit out of your running apps?" FOR THE LOVE OF CHAOS! *RIIING RIIING RIIING RIIING RIIING RIIING* his phone screamed as he looked at the screen. *Marine is calling you*

"TAAAAAAIIIILLSS! OPEN UP TAAAAAIIILSS!" He heard an all too familiar voice yell at him.

Tails moaned in absolute disbelief and annoyance. "dammit."

The weary Fox sat with one hand prodding his sleepy head up while he lounged on the couch while Marine and Cream sat on the opposite couch across the glass coffee table. The raccoon relentlessly jabbered about her day and her trip and whatnot as Tails practically fell asleep on her.

"Um... Ms. Marine, I think he fell asleep..." Cream the Rabbit said in a polite, soft tone, pointing at Tails sleeping facade.

"Whaa?" She looked at his face and concluded that the rabbit was right, the fox was snoring softly and Cream smiled and blushed at this. Cream always had been falling for Tails; she'd been looking out for him ever since Cosmos had died 4 years ago. She was there during the heartbreak and the healing, she helped him get back on his feet and quite frankly, you could practically she loved him.

Marine was going totally gaga over Tails right now, her big, observant eyes scanning every strand of fur on his strong chest, he certainly did mature well. Tails was turning into a hunk and she wriggled her toes in excitement.

After a few minutes of "observing" the sleeping fox the pair decided that it was time to go ahead and leave. Before the two could step outside one inquisitive raccoon saw the basement door was cracked a bit. Marine, interested as ever looked at the door in excitement. Cream noticed her friend's behavior and pleaded softly to her to not venture inside.

"Oh, please Marine, that place has all of Tails private inventions in there, it specifically says no one may enter." The conciliatory rabbit pointed out the clear-as-day warning on the door.

"Oh come on, it's only going to be a second!" She fussed back and she opened the door wider and stuck her big head in. The room was huge and dusty and was stacked to the ceiling with boxes and other mechanical parts that they could not identify. But from the sea of clutter she spotted a light pinkish color dully illuminating the back of the room. And her eyes lit up with excitement once more.

"Looook…" she said lost in awe as she points a gloved finger at the hoop of pink. Cream, clearly distressed, reluctantly followed her friend in to retrieve her as the raccoon got closer to get a better look of the contraption. When Cream reached her friend, Marine was already up close to the ring of quartz and she touched it with her finger. When she did she let out a loud yelp as the tip of her glove was burned off.

Cream eyes widened with fear and worry and pleaded with her to PLEASE exit the room.

But the raccoon didn't listen and started to mindlessly touch a few buttons on a control panel table nearby the quartz.

The rabbit eyes widen in fear and feeling of dread washed over her in a wave as a pulse of energy shot out of Wormhole and smashed into the two creatures.

Then the portal opened up.

A feeling washed over the running hedgehog's body as he was cruising at a steady one hundred fifty mph in a field about a hundred miles from home.

All of a sudden something didn't feel right... A tingly sense of dread poured into Sonic's heart and he frowned. Not a second later an alien pulse of potent energy slammed into his body, though not harming him, but confirming his notion that something is DEFINITELY not right.

Sonic then turned a sharp one-eighty degree turn and headed straight home in a breakneck emergency speed of six hundred mph.

The Blue hedgehog finally arrived at his home in about six minutes and stormed into the house immediately waking up Tails who snapped out of his slumber by the hedgehog practically breaking the door down to the house so abruptly.

"Tails! Tails! Did you turn on the machine?" Sonic asked frantically while he had one hand on the Fox's shoulder.

"Whaa? No, no I haven't Sonic, is something wr-" Tails phone immediately started to go off in a siren type of way and he fumbled around as he got it out of his jumpsuit.

He took one look at it and his Blue eyes shot open in shock. He sprang up and bolted to the basement door as fast as he could and Sonic frantically followed suit.

Once Tails opened up the sound proof door screams of pure terror and the stench of fear hit their faces as soon as they stepped into the room. The sight they saw made them paralyze in fear as they saw a body being stretched to an ungodly length, straight through the WSRP-IPU and through the artificial Event Horizon.

Heat dispelled out into the room as the body was devoured by the portal and was starting on its next victim, the hopeless rabbit that's crying her eyes out, screaming for the mercy of the strange device and hanging onto a vertical support beam. But that didn't stop the portal from consuming her as her legs started to be pulled past the quartz gate. She screamed in pure fear and screamed out to Sonic and Tails that was standing, paralyzed with fear and utter bewilderment.

Tails pulled out his smartphone and started imputing very intricate computer codes for manual shutoff and trying to disconnect the power. But no avail as his automatic generator systems kicked in and supplied the wormhole with ample energy to sustain and finish pulling in Cream, the Rabbit let out one final scream as the machine finally whirled to a stop and the Event horizon dissipated and returned to its gaseous form, pooling and defying gravity, right in the middle of the ring.

Sonic was still finding it hard to swallow what just happened in front of his eyes. And Tails was stricken with confusion. And they shared a long scared look.

Sonic stood there in complete shock before a serious composure replaced it. Sonic gritted his teeth started to bark orders to his two-ailed companion.

"Get the Sonic Team here now; I want that portal opened by the time they get here to get ready to save Cream and Marine! Get going now!", just thinking about his best friends being lost in another realm, not to mention probably hurt or scared, made him mad and anxious to the core.

Tails started too rushed out tapping his Bluetooth earpiece rapidly cycling through his contacts and calling up Knuckles, Amy, Shadow- the latter which appeared with a green flash and ping right next to Sonic with his usual scowl and arms crossed.

Sonic didn't even look up from his concentrating state, and pointed a gloved finger to the ominous portal sitting towards the corner of the room, its core swirling with the gas. Shadow took one look at the machine then immediately shot an angry glare at Tails who looked at him with sorry eyes.

"What the HELL did you do!?" The Black and red hedgehog growled at him, narrowing his eyes and advancing at him.

"I-I-I ... It wasn't my fault they got down here!"

"They?!" Shadow said in question, not knowing someone had gotten sucked into the wormhole. "WHO?!"

"M-Marine and C-Cream..."

"Sonic! Did you tell him what I said about these machines?!"

"I did but-"

"We always have to clean up after your bullsh-"

"Shadow! Calm down, we're going after them.., we just need some help. Will you help us?"

Shadow continued to stare at Tails with anger in his eyes.

"No. This is your mess, you clean it up."

And with that the Ultimate Life-form disappeared with a flash of green light.

• Meanwhile -

Marine and Cream landed harshly against a pitch black, shriveled up tree that moaned and groaned as it swayed in the windless breeze.

Cream and Marine gasped for breath after their quantum leap through space and time. Marine's body convulsed and her body shook as she heaved out vomit, splashing on the ground, which the parched soil sucked up immediately.

Cream wiped the dried tears off her face and proceeded to get off the odd ground that surrounded them. Her scared eyes scanned the pitch Black Forest then up to the hideous supernatural dull orange sky. Smells of smoke and death hung thick in the air, choking her as she breathed in.

"Wh-where are we Ms. Marine?" Cream said in a scared voice.

Marine finally finished her ordeal and came to stand next to Cream. "I really don't know... But we can't stay here... I'm sure Sonic and Tails will come and help us real soon." But Marine herself didn't even believe what she was saying her own self. Surely Tails could find out where they've gone to and rescue them, could he? I mean he's like the Smartest Mobian alive; he has the technology, the smarts, the intuitiveness needed to save them. But what if cant. Now that question lingered in the young raccoon's mind as Cream and she began the terrifying trek to wherever their feet will take them.

What they needed was a Hero.