Inter-dimensional Iliads for insane inquiries

Chapter 5

It was a dark and stormy night...

Though I'm quite not sure how that's possible in a world without time, or weather. Never mind let me start over.

~~It was a dark and stormy night~~ Twilight woke up groggily. Her eyelids felt like lead and her limbs felt like dead weights. Whatever she was doing the day before she was definitely not doing it again. She couldn't quite put her hoof on what it was though.

Mentally shrugging she closed her eyes again and shifted to a more comfortable position, determined to not be not determined. Settling in once more she drifted back in her peaceful slumber. Today Twilight was going to sleep in no matter what happened. Come Parasprites, Nightmare, or even the britallions, she was not getting out of bed.

That is, if she had a bed to begin with.

Twilight leaped to her hooves and looked around her in panic. She wasn't in her bedroom, or her castle, hay she wasn't even indoors! She was instead on floating chunk of flat rock. There wasn't much to say about her rock, it was only a few ponylengths in both length and width, and felt sturdy, but it was most definitely floating. She looked for an exit but the only other landmasses were other rocks floating in the distance, and the only difference they had to her's was the type of flooring they had. The entire ensemble of stone existed in a strange purple space, she wasn't in Ponyville anymore that was for sure. Regardless that her name wasn't Dorthy.

Turning around she spotted a... House? A building that looked like it was constructed out of salvaged parts from previously demolished ones hovered in the distance. From the bits and pieces she could see it seemed residential in purpose, but then again nothing was making sense since she woke up.

"I wonder if this place has street signs?." Wishful thinking on Twilight's part, but when she looked to her right such a street sign was slowly drifting towards her. "Huh, that was easy." She said to herself while remembering a commercial for "Stable's business center".

The words on the sign were faded and hard to make out. Twilight had to wait until it drifted closer to her before reading it's directory. "D... I... S... C... Oh dear Celestia please let that say "disco". However when the sign came close enough to read clearly, it displayed the one thing she didn't need at the moment. Face-hoofing she sighed out "urgh, Discord."

"Yes your highness?" Came a voice behind her.

"Gah!" Whipping around she was confronted by the Draconequus of subject giving her the most infuriating grin in existence. "Discord what are you doing here?"

"Why, I could ask you the same question your majesty. After all I do live here!" He throatily chuckled.

"Please drop the formalities Discord, I know that you only use that title sarcastically. Also what? You live-" She gestured to the miss-matched house. "There?"

"Yes, welcome to my humble abode Princess!" He snapped his avian fingers and procured a tray of glasses. "Would you like an eyeballtini?"

"N-no thank you." Twilight replied, barley keeping a straight face. She crossed the line on touching corpses at dissection, let alone consumption.

With a dismissive wave of his paw he replaced the tray with a stack of paper. "Well than formalities aside lets get on to business shall we?" He put on a pair of reading glasses and cleared his throat. "*Ahem*. The representative from the party of the chaos realm; Mr. Discord, proposes a deal to her majesty Twilight Sparkle, princess of friendship. He broke his reading to flash her a wolfish grin.

"hoo boy, this is not going to be good."

"The party of Discord shall provide a solution to the so named "poster dilemma". Under the terms of full creative control over it's execution. All concerns that arises during which will be claimed fully responsible by the second party. Information on said solution will disclosed simultaneously with it's release to the general public. All attempts to be informed prior to this will be considered as corporate espionage. Finally, any breach in contract by direct intervention or otherwise will result in it's immediate disbanding." Pawing the physical copy of the terms to Twilight he waited for her response.

Twilight stared at the form, reading and re-reading it for any scams or tricks. Not an easy task if the entire composition was a scam in the first place. She could either give Discord free reign to do whatever he wants, or she could hope and pray that whoever won had remembered to brush their teeth before the race. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and what the hard place would be is going to decided by Chaos with a capital C.

"Oh, and another thing." Discord interrupted Twilight's thoughts. "If you need help with your decision I'd like to point out that the maze built by that young filly- Scootaloo was it? Yes, Scootaloo, is only about 1200 square yards for about 200 ponies. Would you like that in Maretric?"

Twilight gawked at the figure. 200 ponies that she potentially needs to smooch, and worst yet among them was prince Blueblood.

"... Do I really have a choice?"

"Why of course you do! Every pony has the right to make his or her own decision. Whether or not you accept my proposal is completely up to you....

Though if I were to break character then no, not really." He ended off with another Cheshire smile.

Twilight sighed defeatedly "Let me stay here for the night and it's a deal." she groaned. In disbelief with herself that she was making a deal with Discord, something she promised not to do.

"Great! Sign here, and here, and here..."

It was a bright and cloudless mid-day, and the school fair was a huge success. Stalls of all kinds were sprawled out on the school grounds containing food, games, prizes, everything a fair should have. Parents of the children that attended the school, as well as the children themselves enjoyed the festivities. Adding to the fun was a sense of pride that the event was put on by none other than themselves. A pleasant ambiance of laughter and music gave entire fair had an upbeat atmosphere. Well, almost the entire fair.

The fair was fairly small (no pun intended), but that was one of it's highlights. It being a very local event, lines for an attraction were usually nonexistent. All of the stalls required no waiting, all except one.

At first glance it looked as if a crowd of crazies were lining up for a stall that wasn't there, but on closer inspection the stall was there, just not here. The line started near the schoolhouse and extended outside school grounds. It snaked along the path to town, brushed against the residential district, up the path to Sweet Apple Acres, and stopped at a small stall run by an orange filly.

Well, more like a stall that used to be ran by an orange filly. Scootaloo was currently hiding behind the stall's wooden counter, and doing an impressive job at it considering the size of the home-made booth.

"Hey!" a gruff voice sounded from behind the plywood she was crouching against. "When is this thing starting?"

"H-half past twelve? I don't really know." she replied sheepishly.

"You don't know?" the stallion (or at least she thought he was, she had yet to actually look at him) said, stomped his hooves in impatience. "don't you have a schedule or something?"

"I do but how in Equestria do you use this thing?" She sprung out from the table and held out what looked to be a grossly over-sized pocket watch that was dropped one too many times. "I just learned how to read analogue, let alone this!" She tried fiddling with one of it's many dials, only to have it start melting in her hooves.

The stallion gave an irritated huffed and walked away muttering "kids"

Scootaloo ducked back into safety to work on deciphering the timepiece again. Re-twisting the dial and banging a couple of times stopped the melting, but in it's stead "Don't Panic" displayed on it's clock face in large friendly letters.

"Don't panic? Don't panic? How the hay do you expect me to do that?"

At the filly's question a mechanism at the bottom began spitting out an endless stream of receipt paper with "42" written on loop.

She hurled the device to the floor. "I am so Done!" Banging her head against the counter for crude stress relief she groaned out "Where- *thud* is- *thud* DISCORD?"

"Now, now, didn't anypony tell you that quitters never win? An amused laugh rang out from behind Scootaloo before she could complete another head slam.

"Speak of the Nightmare" She spun around to face the expected draconequus. "Discord. Where were you." she asked, voice completely flat.

"Preparing the maze of course!" He chuckled "You really must work on your memorization skills."

"You said that you would be done on time."

"And I was. I came back by the time I set on the watch I gave you. Frankly I am a bit confused by your questions young filly." wagging his avian finger he tsked.

"You didn't tell me how to read this thing!" She exasperatedly threw her hooves in the air to emphasize her point.

"What is there to know?" he replied nonchalantly. Picking up the watch from the ground and dusted it off. Then, holding it at arm's length he cleared his throat "What time is it Mr. Wolf?"

"Wolf" whirred and with a click it answered back in a smooth voice. "It is quarter to one, and bluechip stocks are through the roof! Can I interest you in some?"

Scootaloo couldn't hear the last portion over the sound of her jaw slamming on the ground. "That thing can talk...?"

"Well duh, You just heard it talking after all" Discord rolled his eyes in false ignorance.

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the fake story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.” Wolf the talking watch confirmed.

"Yes, yes that's enough from you Wolf."

"Okay I'll stop talking... If you sell me this pen!"

"Hmm, how about..." In the blink of an eye Discord materialized an enormous hammer and slammed it down on the back-talking clock. Where Wolf once was, was now replaced by a hammer larger than all three cutie mark crusaders (or roughly the size of one particular MC's parachute pants) and a sizable indent in the ground. He pulled the hammer's head out to check his handiwork and was me with the satisfaction of a plate of sheet metal. Dusting off his paws/talons he muttered "Hmph. Just because you're a glorified alarm clock doesn't change the fact that you're an alarm clock."

Scootaloo was still lost at "Crappy not-so-pocket watch can talk" and was trying (unsuccessfully) to catch up to "Discord is the whack-a-mole equivalent to Tirek wearing glasses with Scorpan stickers pasted on the lenses.

"Hello? Equestria to Scootaloo, can you hear me?"

The pegasus filly snapped back into reality to see Discord's expectant face. "Er, yeah. So are you done with the modifications to the maze?"

"As a matter of fact I am! Ooh this is going to be so much fun! It's been a while since I was able to do this." He was visibly brimming with glee.

"Do what, Build mazes?" Scootaloo asked curiously. "Well he's awfully excited."

"Not just build mazes, build mazes the way I what! Usually I can't do anything without Celestia butting in and saying: "Nooo Discord, you can't instate yourself as president", or "Nooo Discord, you can't make "Discord care" mandatory" But you know what? Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!"

Scootaloo backed away from the increasingly unstable ranter. "Discord are you okay?"

"THANKS OBAMARE- Yes I am quite fine thank you."

"I think I understand why Twilight gave those supplementary lessons on "Not talking to the embodiment of chaos 101". I'm starting to regret my choice on not taking an advanced course... So anyways I can let everypony in now right?

"Yes, you can start the race whenever your ready."

Scootaloo chanced a glance at the massive crowd of impatient ponies. "I think I'm ready now, or at least I'll feel better with less daggers being glared at me." Trotting to the "sorry we're closed" sign she borrowed from Pinkie she flipped it so that it read "welcome we're open" Spinning around she announced "Hey everypony the maze is now open-"

And that's as far as she got before she was swamped by the wave of ponies barreling through the maze entrance and the filly blocking the path. Scootaloo had a very strong sense of self preservation and so quickly turned tail and ran from the virtual wall of prospectors.

Looks like the contest just got one more contestant She thought before booking it down the path.

The first thing she noticed that was different was that the maze was a breeze, literally. All the slats and barriers put in were gone. Only the outer ones were still in place so that the maze was closed off from outside. Even the apple trees were gone, leaving nothing but a bare field. The only thing that filled the empty courtyard was a dark swirling mass of magic that blocked the maze's exit. The magical blot rippled like a fabric and produced a faint breeze, thus the literal part. Other than that the maze was nothing.

Scootaloo wasn't the only pony confused about the turn of events. Looking around her all the other ponies also slowed their pace or flat out stopped to gape at the fluctuating behemoth. There was no clear way around the barrier, and although the magic energy looked like a fabric it didn't seem likely that it would give away to force. The stalemate continued until a pony- no wait scratch that, person sprinted towards the ominous shroud.

"Bacon head where are you going? The great and powerful demands to know!" an aqua unicorn ran after her two-legged companion.

"That thing is a portal. The maze must continue on from the other side!" Without slowing down she ran full speed into the portal and merged into it with a ripple.

That seemed to be incentive enough for rest of the contestants. The pony wall began to gained momentum again, following in suit into the inky depths of transpositioning magic.

All who entered was not without their had their own speculations of what awaited them on the other side. Hint, all of them guessed wrong.

What was on the other side was not religious in any fashion, but as soon as the first person stepped through all hell broke loose.

Author's Note

I can finally write about the ~~deathtraps~~ obstacles I thought up! This is going to be fun

I had a little trouble with this chapter, hopefully it came out good. There will be about 3 more chapters left and maybe an epilogue. To anyone reading THANK YOU again this is my first story and I have no clue in hell what I'm doing

Flying toaster out!