Discordvania

Dead Beat saw black after the snap. Frantic blinking saw colors return in blurs and blotches. After blinking some more she realized the blurs and blobs were what was actually in front of her. A door splattered haphazardly in paints. Cotton candy was scattered across the unpainted sections, making the door look out of place in the normal, stone dungeon aesthetic that seemed to surround her. She reached out a lone hoof and instantly recoiled at the sticky paint and cotton candy. She stuck out her tongue in disgust and wiped her hoof across the ground, trying to clean off the vile substance. She took a moment to look for a door. Literally, any other door would do. Unfortunately, the room was barren. Cold stone in every direction besides the door. She sighed and dunked her hoof in cotton candy. She winced as her hoof fished around in the cotton candy door, before finally finding a handle. Wincing at the feeling of wet paint mixed with cotton candy making an entirely unpleasant feeling that went down to her bone.

The door opened, into the most disturbing area that Dead Beat had ever seen. She vaguely remembered a board game called Candyland she played as a kid. This looked like a mix between that, and a horrible swamp. Candy cane tree’s had licorice vines draping over a mars-like puddle of chocolate milk. Sour gummy worms were scattered about the swamp, making a disturbing footpath that Dead Beat might be able to use to cross. She slowly moved out of the doorway, testing the weight of the soft path. THough it squished under her hoof, it stayed above the chocolate quagmire. She moved onto it fully, coating her uncovered hooves in the crystal-like sour dust.

She groaned in disgust as she made her way across the sour gummy worms, occasionally having to hop from one to another to keep from swimming in the soup of chocolate milk underneath her. She marched through the swamp, trying desperately to ignore the various denizens of the swamp. However, she never accounted for them noticing her. She walked across a thin worm, that was snaking it’s way to a distant island of regular dirt in the candy-coated hellscape she found herself in.

Her first hint was a soft splash beside her. She turned to look at it, fearing some insane creation skulking right below the surface. Instead, she found a cat. The cat looked perfectly normal, in stained white fur with a gem-encrusted collar. In fact, the only odd thing about the cat at all was its size. After all, you didn’t see a pony-sized cat every day, that was more a Friday thing.

Dead Beat screamed as the cat pounced on the worm she was currently standing on, causing it to wiggle and spasm. She tried to valiantly hold her ground, but the jingle of her various bells seemed to surge the cat on. With it’s renewed attack Dead Beat was jettisoned from the Gummi worm. She splashed down in the chocolate milk, sour salt sticking to her outfit and fur in clumps and bunches. “EW EW EW EW EWWWW!!” She stood quickly, barely noticing how shallow the chocolate milk was. “By Chaos, it’s under my shirt, I need a shower right now!” She began trotting in place, trying to jar the various detritus from her fur.

A snap broke her out of her trance. Suddenly water was dumped all over her, along with maniacal laughter. “Oh, you are a treat dear!” Dead Beat turned, facing Discord, who was holding an empty bucket, still dripping water from its lip. “Most ‘heroes are all about traipsing through my minor little discomforts. And in you walk all ready to fight, and get freaked out by some chocolate milk in your uniform.”

Discord devolved into a fit of giggles, much to Dead Beats chagrin. “Buck you, I was tooled for a fight, not... not some playground game!”

Discord flipped in the air, looking at the young mare upside down. “Oh, my dear little pony. Life is a playground game. Not my fault ponies can’t play king of the hill.” A hill appeared from the mire, rising up and giving Discord a birds-eye view. “But enough from me, you’ve got a sentient marshmallow to meet.”

Scootaloo stared in confusion as Discord popped out of the room, collapsing the hill. Dead Beat was covered in the remains of the mountain. She paused as a pebble landed in her mouth, causing her to gag.

She spit it out and grimaced. “Ugh, dark chocolate.” She spit again, this time into the pool of chocolate milk that she began trotting through. It wasn’t very deep, but she felt every wave splash against her barrel. Wincing at the feeling of cold milk on her fur, she looked for a path through the bog. The only path had been the gummy worm trail, which was now thoroughly wrapped around the cat. Dead Beat stared as the cat happily rolled around, turning the only path that didn’t involve wading into an edible scarf. Dead beat sighed and looked at the mire between her and the ground. “Buck”

After some unfortunately splashy trotting, Dead Beat made it to the small island. She tried to shake off all the leftover chocolate from her now matted fur. “It’s gonna take forever to clean all this from my fur.”

She began trying to wipe off the offending detritus until a voice broke her from her solemn task. “Oh Darling, you simply must be on your way.” Dead Beat paused, looking over the landscape for the voice’s owner.

After glancing over a pile of marshmallows she paused. There was a splash of blue from the mound of marshmallow cream. Dead Beat stared for a moment. THen two as the blue colored area moved up, revealing a solid white pony face. “Uhm, can I help you?”

The marshmallow colored mare trotted out of the pile of sweets, the clatter of rocks heralding her exit from the sugary mountain of diabetes. The mare sent a spiral of magic out of her horn, trying to push Dead Beat off of her island. “Darling, you just need to leave. You are an eyesore on my beautiful home. I simply cannot stand such garishness upon my little abode. You just have to leave.”

Dead Beat pushed against the magic. “Well it’s either this or the chocolate milk puddle, so I’m gonna stay right here thank you.”

The unicorn doubled down on her magic. “Well if it’s either on this island with me or in the muck. I think you should go back to the muck to find other savages like yourself.”

Dead Beat felt dirt part as she was pushed back, and flicked her head side to side. As she did she tried to brace herself deeper into the ground to hold the line. It turns out, flicking ones head while coated in chocolate milk makes a rather large mess. Dead Beat felt the magic stop, causing her to recover with all the majesty and grace that falling flat on your face can allow. Which is to say, next to none. She rose her head and saw the unicorn wailing while running back behind the fortress of diabetes. She went between two marshmallows and found the most logical and sensible thing she’d seen all day. A stairwell. She sighed. “Of course, I’ll just go down the marshmallow staircase, and find myself inside Castle Von Stay Puft.” She wandered down the staircase, grand pillars flanking either side in what would have been a grand work of architecture. If the various torches allowing Dead Beat to see weren’t making roasted pillars drip onto the stairs in steaming pools. Dead Beat made sure to avoid the surprisingly dangerous hazard. She reached the bottom of the staircase and looked over the lone door. It was, of course, marshmallow. The odd part was the two statues flanking it. They were bipeds, made out of circular marshmallows. Dead Beat tried to keep her eyes on both of them as she opened the door. She was greeted with pure horror. The Biped statues were EVERYWHERE. They were in various poses, with the statues making an obvious path to a far door. She took a step forward and instantly felt a soft object knock her from her feet. She looked from her now prone position, looking in the direction of impact. A statue was there, posed as if it had just thrown something.

She stared at it as she rose to her feet. She moved slowly towards it, before poking it with a hoof. At the sounds of the bells stitched into her sleeve, a shrill whistle sounded through the hall. She flipped herself towards it and found discord in a navy button-up shirt and an orange vest. “Alright boys, it’s time for the race. This girl looks like she needs some new wheels!” Dead Beat stared as the statues began to move, drawing circular marshmallows from their bodies and taking careful aim. Dead Beat began to book it the door, not waiting to see what was about to happen until the impacting marshmallow slowed her pace. To a crawl as she tried to force past the fusillade of marshmallow projectiles.

She fell to a solid strike on her head and heard a muffled shout from behind her. “BONUS POINTS!” Dead Beat was blinded by the marshmallow now looped around her neck. Unable to see, she tried to continue her trek to the door, blindly flailing to get to the handle. Another marshmallow rolled onto her hat. The jingle of the bells heralded her sight going from, pure white marshmallow vision, to pure darkness. She felt the muted impact off fluffy death nipping her heels as she pushed on, before feeling the soft give of what she hoped was the door. With some blind grabbing, she managed to wrench open the door and fall through it. She laid down on the floor and let herself lay there a moment. She heard Discord speaking above her. “What’s the matter, didn’t enjoy the Michelin hall?”

Dead Beat threw off the marshmallow tires, which bounced away making a sound similar to whining dogs. “WHAT THE BUCK WAS THAT!”

Discord smiled and leaned back, summoning a lawn chair to bask in her impotent rage. “Oh come on now, those are an endangered species. THey’ve been falling out of style so long I had to adopt all those lost little children.”

Dead Beat stared in confusion. “Adopt them?”

Discord nodded with a lazy smile. “Of course, can’t have them all lost and confused in the void, plus they are so wonderfully chaotic, fighting giant monsters and fixing wagons, who came up with it?!” He jumped out of his chair with raised arms. “To be honest I wish I did.”

With that he disappeared, leaving Dead Beat’s path clear. She really wanted to ask more questions but saw this for the boon it was. Discord answering any question was a curse. Down the path of Discords reasoning lay naught but madness and nightmares. Normally combined in the most humorous method possible. Like a tentacle demon that sang opera while it played you like a violin. Off key.

Dead Beat took a moment to stretch, her wings flexing against the fabric of the jester suit. She frowned at that but shrugged. Maybe Discord thinking she was an Earth Pony would come in handy later. After taking a moment to flick off the worst of the marshmallow leftovers. Fine with her current state of cleanliness, she moved to the next door. Opening it, she saw a grand ballroom. Inside was the white unicorn, using a very soft towel to clean herself off. “Oh dear, that absolute brute got chocolate milk all over my perfect mane.”

Dead Beat paused as she looked over the mare. She was drop-dead gorgeous. The type of beautiful that inspired stallions to either heroism or madness. In the case of any heroes trying to stop Discord, it was almost certainly the latter. Dead Beat scanned the room. She paused over the glowing red exit sign. It led to a simple door of stone and steel, which clashed with the fluffy opulence that the Bastion of Tooth Decay seemed to be showing. She looked between it and the mare before shrugging. “I’m not gonna waste the time on this crazy mare.”

She began moving to the door before a soft sob came from the mare. “If only I knew where my wonderful Opal was. She knows just how to cheer her mama up.”

Dead Beat paused. She could easily just walk through the door, save her time and energy for the inevitable future issues that would come from helping this mare. But she was a hero. Heroes helped everypony. Including stuck up mares who try to kick them off the only land in a swamp. She walked up to the mare, hating herself for wasting time on this. “Hello, do you need any help?”

The mare turned and looked at Dead Beat like a particularly rancid bug that had landed on her plate. “Help, from you? Hah!” She scoffed and waved a hoof at her. “The only one that can help me is a true hero. One who would tell me where my dear Opal went.”

Dead Beat sighed. This had the chance to be her whole day, didn’t it? “And what, exactly, is this Opal?”

The mare made an exaggerated gasp. “You don’t know Opal, she’s the most impressive cat to ever grace out the fair kingdom! Why her regal stance, her majestic fur. If housecats had a kingdom she would be the queen!”

Dead Beat paused. That sounded suspiciously like the cat that got hyped up by her bells and the blatant murder of gummy worms. “Uhm, yeah. I’ve seen her, one second.” Scootaloo reached up to a bell on her outfit. After a moment of struggle, she pulled off a bell, only to have another grow in its place. She sighed at her inability to stop the cursed jingles. “She liked these bells, just ring it outside and she should come running.”

The mare paused. “Really? And you're just going to give it to me?” Dead Beat nodded dumbly. It wasn’t like she was giving a priceless jewel or anything. Rarity smiled wide and wrapped Dead Beat in a hug, ignoring the detritus that had accumulated from her floor. “Oh dear, you are simply too kind.”

Dead Beat shrugged. “It’s nothing. Ponies help ponies and all that jazz. If we don’t, then we’ll just be doing what Discord wants.”

The white pony shook her head. “Well, either way, I simply must go find Opal. But know this.” She raised a lone white hoof. “If you ever need a hand, Rarity Belle will be there to help.”

Dead Beat nodded, but before a response could form, a bright flash blinded her. As she blinked away the blindness she realized she was now alone. Rarity was gone, and in her place was a bag with a necklace in it. Dead Beat walked up, before shrugging. “Well, I guess this is her help.” She pulled the bag over her flanks and made her way to the door. After all, this was just the first floor.