This is War

"Dash, slow down!" Twilight Sparkle was yelling at playful celurean mare.

"This is waaay too much booring." Rainbow Dash let out annoyed groan not noticing what was ahead of her. "I never thought you are going to take us into muze-" THUD!

Rainbow Dash crashed into one of the sculptures in Canterlot gardens. Unfortunately it was the only sculpture made from living creature. Discord's statue started to fall down. Rainbow was too much distracted by pain. The others were stunned and able to only look at falling statue in fear. Statue hit the ground, shattering itself into pieces. It was like shattering of normal statue. No special effects, no sparks, no releasing of creature trapped inside cold stone. Only Twilight and Rarity could felt life energy of trapped creature. It simply dropped. Twilight knew what did it mean. They killed Discord.

"Havens...what happened?" Rarity said quietly and looked at Twilight.

"I...I think...we killed him." Twilight whispered. All her friends were quiet.

"Ah thought that thin' was somethin' like a god." Applejack said while he was looking at pieces of statue.

"Me too. But it's good. Now he is unable to come back and do anything mean to anypony so it's good thing in the end. You know what this calls for? A-" Pinkie finally broke her silence caused by shock from breaking statue to be silenced by purple hoof.

"No. I think it not calls for a party. There must be reason, why he was imprisoned in stone instead of killed or banished. Do you remember Nightmare Moon, girls? She was not imprisoned. She was simply banished from this world by the Elements. Especially there must be reason, because we killed him so easily." Twilight said.

"Ah ya sure, sugarcube?" Applejack asked "Ah don' believe that he's killed."

"I remember that he started his chaos immediately after broking from his prison. No, Applejack. I'm afraid we killed him. After all he was like Celestia, Luna or Chrysalis. Immortal, but not invulnerable. I think we should tell the princess about it." Twilight said and whole group started to head back to castle.

"No. Don't blame yourself, Twilight. I'm not mad at you Rainbow either. I felt it was better to keep that statue locked away, but I wasn't listening to my feelings. I should have known better, because it was school excursion, when he broke from his prison last time. I should have thought about it before placing him back." Celestia reasured six friends, which were silent.

"But I was thinking. It's not coincidence, that he was imprisoned while others, who were hit by the power of the Elements were banished from this world. I have a bad feeling about this." Twilight quietly said. She looked more shaken then even Fluttershy.

"I know, Twilight. There is some theory, but it's hard to prove it and nopony can tell what will happen next. This theory is about keeping balance in universe and alternative universe. It was written by one scholar in times of my first imprisoning of Discord. I can point you on that scroll, but it's all our knowledge about this problem. This had simply never happened." Celestia said, "This scroll is the oldest one in Wing of Schollars. It was written by Stargazer if I recall his name correctly."

"So...now we will find that scroll and see what's written inside, Princess." Twilight said and started to head to the Canterlot Library.

"So this is the oldest scroll here?" Rainbow asked.

"Yes. Let's see, what's inside." Twilight started to slowly unfold the scroll.

Darker Equestria

Why balance is not equal to harmony

By: Stargazer

I was recently researching strange behaving of Elements of Harmony and I have come to interesting conclusion. Some clues leads me to think about some old spells, which allowed long-distant travelling, but had terrible effects if there was mistake made during performing first part.

This spell was created by unicorn, which name had been forgotten like the spell itself. I was able to recover only rough description from very old copy of Oldest Equestrian History. It's said that there are two parts of this spell. One is named Beacon, which marks position in space. Second is dangerous one. It's spell, which throw caster out of space and back. Without beacon, it's impossible to control that spell and predict where caster of this spell appeares. But this spell is not only for travel through space. It allows to travel to another dimensions, which was the reason, why it was forbidden to perform that spell, which is now forgotten.

Second clue is more rumor or wide-spread idea. We have confirmed that there are alternative universes or at least one. It's said and commonly proven that there is two sides of everything. It's named duality. This leads me into thinking about one particular alternative universe. In this universe is nearly everything the same as there except that there are switched meanings of good and evil. If somepony is kind there, the alternative of him is cruel.

I have been thinking a lot. Why Elements of Harmony are keeping Discord imprisoned? There is no reason for this. He can be killed. He is spirit, not a god. Answer to this have been escaping my understanding for a long time, but I finaly figured it out. Balance. It was just luck that I looked into that news. There was study about criminality in Equestria. There was no murder in whole ten years. I don't know what's happening outside of Equestria, but there are only a few pieces of land, which are not discovered and there is no really evil creature. Even dragons are keeping their neutrality. There was something about my room-mate. He have been studying physics recently. He talked a lot about balance. He also did a few shenanigans in library with hourglasses. He left them in horizontal position, with the same amount of sand on both sides so there was no need of magic to hold them in that position. He said that there is everything in balance and everything in universe is keeping it's balance. It was the last piece I needed. After all this clues I realized that Discord is keeping this world in balance. I saw enough stars with their planets around. I know this theory cannot be proven without killing Discord, but I feel it right to write it. I hope this will help somepony with research and I only hope this will stay as theory.

Declined.

"Declined? What does it mean?" Rainbow asked. He finished reading second to Twilight.

"Every theory must be proven or it's declined. Teachers in school are approving theories, when they see evidence. Proving this is impossible. No pony can be sure if aftermatch of killing Discord is reversible." Twilight quietly answered Rainbow's question.

"Havens, but this is not helping. I don't clearly understand this theory, but still there is nothing about what will happen." Rarity said.

"I have no idea, what is this saying. But he have a point. There is always second side to everything. Party, not party. Baloons, not baloons. Streamers, not streamers. Cupcakes, not cupcakes. Oh I know what to do. I will throw them party. Both of them, they look like good ponies and friends and I want to know them a-!" Pinkie started to think loudly.

"PINKIE!" Twilight shouted to stop her.

"Yes, Twilight?" Pinkie asked.

"They are probably dead. This scroll is more than hundred years old." Twilight said, looking at Pinkie, who seemed to be a bit upset by this fact.

"Ah can't say ah understan' what's written in that scroll." Applejack said looking confused.

"Don worry, AJ. Me neither. It's for eggheads." Rainbow said and started to look around, "Twi? Is any of this scrolls written by you?"

"W-what?" Twilight snapped out of thinking about balance.

"I asked you about these scrolls. Is there any scroll written by you?" Rainbow repeated answer.

"No. Oh...I nearly forgotten! Yes! There is one written by me. I hid it in this library. I didn't want somepony to stole my research....there it is." Twilight smiled, looked around and with her magic, she took out small scroll hidden behind bookcase.

"Stole your research? Is stealing common here?" Rainbow asked quietly.

"Yes. It is one of the reasons, why I had no friends here. Everypony in this school want to be famous with magic research and they were doing everything for it. This library wing is for projects, which are waiting to be proven or interesting, but incompleted projects like mine." Twilight answered.

"What is your research about, darling?" Rarity asked.

"It's about pony magic." Twilight answered.

"You mean unicorn magic, don't you?" Rainbow said.

"No. I mean exactly what I said. I have observed pegasi, earth ponies and unicorns, made some calculations and it was all leading me into thinking about that we are all completely equal, but pegasi are sacrifising some of their stamina for wings and us, unicorns are sacrifising nearly all of our stamina for horn, which allows us to cast spells. But it cannot be completed without observing alicorns, which seems to be exception. So it had been declined, but I think this is way to create race changing spell." Twilight said with a bit of sandess in her voice.

"You mean spell, which can give me horn instead of wings or take away my wings to give me more endurance?" Rainbow asked.

"Yes. That's exactly what it would be. But I think making this spell is not a good idea." Twilight answered.

"This would be the most super-awesome spell! I would like to be a unicorn, because it's sometimes really hard to make something, but with magic it's done by blink of an eye. Oh, oh and you, girls, imagine how many of cakes I would be able to do if I would have horn to do magic...." Pinkie started to talk, but no pony seemed to pay her attention.

"Who declined your project?" Rainbow asked.

"Princess Celestia. Who else? I'm her own personal protégé. She is my mentor and every single of my projects are going through her." Twilight said. She ensured that they are there alone and hid her scroll behind bookcase again.

"I think we need to see Princess again. This scroll is trying to say something, but it's incompleted. It looks like Stargazer had fear and didn't want to think about it more." Twilight said and returned Stargazer's scroll.