The Day of Discord

Chapters

Released
First Blood
Not A Trivial Foe
The Fall of Gibraltar
The Hope of Chaos
"Q" Havoc
Spoiled Expectations
Eclipsed
Between Hope and Despair
Siblings in Charge
King Takes Rook
Sadness and Deceit
The Great Element Heist
Oh, Bats!
With A Chance of Quesadillas
Battle On The Canterlot Express
Ain't Easy Bein' Cheesy
Xanthocaseophobia
Walk A Lonely Road
Encounter at Canterlot Tower
The Maze Master
A-maze-ingly Frustrating
Bats No Good!
Ready to Pass
The Backstop
We Shall Have Order
Some Reassembly Required
At What Cost

Released

Perhaps in retrospect it was a mistake to let school groups tour the castle's statue garden without any kind of Guard escort, but Princess Celestia, compelled by the need to reassure her subjects that there was no danger whatsoever associated with those statues, ordered it done anyway. She would long regret that decision, for that, instead of any arcane method tried by the traitorous Agents of Chaos, was how the draconequus Discord was released from his stone prison.

Although there was no specific prophesied timeline as had been the case with "Nightmare Moon", the same stellar alignment that had aided her escape also weakened the petrification spell that held Discord immobilized. The continued machinations of the Agents of Chaos, influencing the environment around Canterlot, prevented the spell from regaining strength as the stars moved out of alignment again, and Celestia's check of the statue after the failure of Operation Whirlwind proved to be a false hope of its sturdiness. Finally, to combat rumors springing up of some dark secret being hidden in Canterlot Castle's statue garden, Princess Celestia allowed unescorted tours of school groups and similar tourist arrangements to openly tour said garden without escort.

That decision was controversial, to put it simply, and even some within the castle's guard service whispered opposition to it. Captain of the Guard Gibraltar privately disagreed with it, but felt duty-bound to follow the orders given to him (and remind his subordinates of the same principle when necessary). The morning and afternoon shift leaders, Lieutenant Captains Stratocumulus and Fidelitas respectively, shared the opinions of the Captain and had to constantly be wary of any signs of rebellion or disagreement. The night shift leader, Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor, tried to share the body of concern with Princess Luna, but the younger royal sister simply refused to even entertain the notion of going against her older sister's decree. Shortly thereafter, the catastrophe of Discord's release would once again sunder the united ranks of the Canterlot Guard, opening the way for future catastrophes as well...

The cracking, once initiated by the spat between the three members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, spread quickly over the whole form of the statue - too quickly, in fact, for anypony to have done anything more than raise an alarm upon hearing and seeing it happen. As it turned out, however, Discord was alone when the stone covering finally shattered in a blinding blast of magical energy, stone fragments being hurled into foliage and damaging the garden's other statues when they impacted.

"Confounded overpowered magical artifacts, totally unfair, underestimated those alicorns..." the released draconequus mutters to himself as he picks off the remaining pieces of the shattered stone covering. He then began contorting and twisting his long body in various ways to work out the kinks within, in some cases literally taking off and then putting back on the limbs of his composite body.

"Where am I anyway?" Discord then asks himself as he looks around at his surroundings. "A statue garden?! They put me on display like a trophy?! Oh, those alicorns will certainly pay for this!"

The sound of other voices draws Discord's attention to his right, in this case to a pair of Guards who had just galloped upon the scene. As one spoke to his partner, both of them pointed the sharp end of their pikes at Discord: "The statue is alive?!? I thought that was all just rumor!"

"Now what do we do? There's nothing in the Academy training about how to handle a living statue!" the other Guard stallion answers back.

"So, you two have come to play, have you?" Discord now mocks, his face twisting into a malicious grin as he rubs his lion paw and eagle claw "hands" together in anticipation. "It does not matter those alicorns have seemed to succeed in erasing my name from common knowledge of ponykind in Equestria. I shall teach you again, as many times as necessary, and as painfully and viciously as necessary! Do your worst, peons, for you cannot harm the almighty Discord!"

MEANWHILE, IN THE CANTERLOT GUARD OFFICES...

"Slow down, soldier! Repeat to me what is going on out there." Captain Gibraltar was saying to the Lower Class Guard that had rushed into the office, disrupting what had been a peaceful session of processing paperwork.

"There's something definitely going on with the statue of Discord, sir!" the Lower Class Guard breathlessly exclaims. "The squad heard cracking noises coming from the statue garden after the Ponyville class passed through, and the Lieutenant sent me to you while he had two other squad members check it out!"

"Princess Celestia has worried about that statue a lot, I sure hope this isn't the reason why..." Gibraltar thinks to himself as he suddenly rises from his seated position behind the desk.

The Captain of the Guard rivets the attention of the Lower Class as he begins his stream of orders: "Listen to me very carefully, Guard, because I only want to give these orders out once. You are to inform your Lieutenant that they are to start evacuation of all tourists and non-staff workers in the castle right this very moment, to be coordinated by Lieutenant Captain Stratocumulus. You are also to have Lieutenant Captains Fidelitas and Shining Armor summoned to the statue garden immediately. I will inform the Princesses of what is happening, and all of them will need to know about this. Stratocumulus will have operational authority for the moment, do not try to find me here later. Do you understand everything I just told you, Guard?"

"Yes, sir!" the Lower Class replies in a shaky salute.

"Then go! And make everything doubletime, you understand?" Gibraltar adds.

"Understood, sir!" the Lower Class answers again, already having turned and started out of the Captain's office.

As soon as the Lower Class had departed the sight of the Captain of the Guard, Gibraltar took a deep breath, trying to mentally prepare himself for a very long day, before starting out of the office himself. Unfortunately for the Captain, the chaos had already been unleashed, and there was virtually nothing he, or anypony is his command, could do against it...

First Blood

"Ha ha ha, I forgot how much fun it is to just toy around with your pathetic attempts to resist me!" the draconequus Discord was mocking as he contorted and teleported away from repeated attempts to ram him by the luckless pegasi Royal Guards. The two that had initially confronted him had been reinforced by two additional guards, but the increase in pony numbers did nothing in terms of deterrence - only the arrival of the alicorns themselves would've done that, and the fact they had not already shown up added to the pleasure he was enjoying at the moment.

As one guard whizzes by, Discord reaches out and grabs him by a wing, painfully heaving him into an oncoming comrade and letting out a sinister chuckle as both pegasi tumble to the ground near a damaged statue. Quickly, he kicks away a third trying to sneak up from underneath Discord's floating position, and then the fourth he knocks away with an oversized baseball bat he had materialized out what seemed to be thin air. That fourth pegasi went whizzing past Lieutenant Captain Fidelitas, who was entering the scene on full gallop.

Fidelitas stops just long enough to see the subordinate guard slam into a hedge, then he turns and faces the hovering draconequus, who is still holding the bat as if ready to take another swing at an attacker. The forest green unicorn stallion lets out a low growl, then grey-colored unicorn magic begins forming around his horn, coalescing into a solid grey column of energy that extends up and out at the same angle as the horn itself.

"Oooh, I've always wanted to do one of these!" Discord exclaims as he sees the energy beam form around the horn of Fidelitas. The baseball bat disappears in a poof, replaced by a device that a human would recognize as a Star Wars lightsaber. The draconequus activates the device, producing a column of bright red energy, and charges in the direction of Fidelitas. The unicorn Lieutenant Captain starts a counter-charge, and the two beams of energy crash together in a loud flash and buzzing sound.

Discord pulls back from the lock, the lightsaber he was wielding making a characteristic "whoom" sound as it moved, and the pegasi Guards previously attacking him take advantage of the distraction to evacuate their wounded - the pegasus grabbed by the wing and the one sent into the hedge at full speed. As they retreated, they saw the draconequus attack again, forcing Fidelitas into a defensive "lightsaber duel", hoping he could at least buy time for reinforcements...

MEANWHILE, NEAR THE CANTERLOT CASTLE GATES...

"Could you at least explain what's going on, sir?!" the teacher Cheerilee shouted to the escort Lower Class Guard as her Ponyville class hustles behind her in the mandatory evacuation that cut the rest of the class trip short.

"Sorry, ma'am, but we don't really know ourselves. All we know is that something happened in the statue garden and that my superiors are trying to get the situation under control." the guard answers back with a shake of his head.

"The statue garden?!" Cheerilee exclaims back, which prompts the three Cutie Mark Crusaders trailing behind the rest of the class to exchange worried looks.

"Why do I get the feeling our essays just got longer?!" Scootaloo shouts to Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.

"Your essays are definitely going to get longer if you fillies don't hustle your flanks up!" Cheerilee shouts back in irritation, which prompts the mortified trio to hustle even faster to catch up to the rest of the class.

About 10 seconds later, the Ponyville class group hurries its way through the castle main gates, and the Lower Class escort falls back as the gates are pushed shut and locked by two comrades. The Lower Class stops and salutes his commanding Lieutenant monitoring the evacuation operation.

"Was that the last group?" the Lieutenant asks his saluting squad member.

"Yes sir, all visitors accounted for and evacuated from the castle grounds!" the Lower Class barks back as an answer.

"Good! The gates are to remain on lockdown until further notice - nothing goes in or out except by direct order of Princess Celestia herself!"

As the four pegasi guards retreat from their battle with Discord, they pass Lieutenant Captain Stratocumulus, who was running a check that all visiting groups had indeed been evacuated from the castle grounds. The superior officer stops them and asks for a report.

"Two seriously injured, we're trying to get them to the medical center now!" one of the uninjured pegasi shouts, and Stratocumulus can quickly see which two are injured - one pegasus with an inflamed and temporarily disabled wing, and another that winced in pain every time he took a breath, marking him with broken ribs.

"Understood, the Captain is trying to get Shining Armor as well as the alicorns onto the scene." Stratocumulus explains. "The entire castle is to be on lockdown, and Fidelitas is engaging the living statue now. Hopefully once the alicorns can engage him we'll be able to get this under control."

It was unfortunate that at the time Stratocumulus did not know how badly mistaken his opinion was. If he had known better, he would've been on the verge of panic, and he would've understood what motivated generations of ponies to live and die in trying to revive him. Chaos incarnate was attacking in the statue garden, and the fact that this was not well understood would only lead to more pain and suffering...

Not A Trivial Foe

"Captain, with all due respect could you tell me what the buck is going on here, sir?!" Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor exclaims as he gallops through the hallways of Canterlot Castle, heart pounding and adrenaline pumping after his sudden awakening from a deep slumber.

"Sorry Shining, but there isn't time to give a proper briefing!" Captain Gibraltar answers as he races beside Shining, both unicorns whipping around a corner as he speaks. "Something's happened in the statue garden, one of the statues coming to life apparently. Whatever it is has already defeated the first responders, and Fidelitas is engaging it now."

"What about Stratocumulus, sir?" Shining Armor naturally asks.

"Coordinating the evacuation of all visitors and non-essential staff from the castle. I've left him in operational authority because both of us may be needed to take whatever is in that garden down. This is not a trivial foe we are dealing with, Shining."

"What about the alicorns? The Elements of Harmony, sir?"

"At least Princess Celestia ought to know about this by now. I am hoping we do not need to involve any of the princesses or the Elements of Harmony - Celestia will have to make the final call on that matter if we fail."

"Understood. ETA to arriving in the statue garden?"

"30 seconds. Be ready to attack immediately."

While all this was going on, the draconequus Discord was engaged in a "lightsaber" duel with Lieutenant Captain Fidelitas, dancing and contorting as his red-colored saber clashed with the silvery-colored beam of magic wielded by Fidelitas. Fidelitas played defensively, simply parrying away any direct strike as well as slicing through the pieces of stone Discord sometimes threw at him from a distance.

The unicorn's strength began flagging, however, and to his fear he could tell his unusual foe was growing less and less entertained with this "dance" each passing moment. He was determined to buy as much time as he could for allies to show up, but didn't know who or what that would be. When the two beams of energy locked together with sparking and crunching sounds, Fidelitas knew the battle was nearing its conclusion.

"Ugh, all right that's enough of that!" Discord exclaims before gesturing with his left eagle-claw "hand" in a pushing motion toward Fidelitas.

Just moments later, Fidelitas feels an unseen blast that knocks him right off his hooves. His magic sword deactivates as he tumbles sideways, rolling and bouncing off the ground several times. When he stops, his face is contorted with agony. Just seconds later, Guard Captain Gibraltar and Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor come into view, skidding to a stop in front of him.

"Fidelitas?! Are you alright?" Gibraltar exclaims, him and Shining helping Fidelitas back on his hooves.

"I'm sorry, sir... Ow, my head..." Fidelitas replies as his face twists again into wincing from the raging headache that had just hit him.

"Whatever he was fighting pushed his magic usage too hard." Shining Armor comments ominously, recognizing the sudden onset of the "migraine" headache that sometimes stemmed from a powerful unicorn overdoing their magic energy usage.

"What, more of their minions coming at me?!" an irritated and increasingly impatient Discord exclaimed in interruption. "If those alicorns have the Elements, why don't they show their royal faces? I must be missing something!"

"Excuse me whatever you are, but we are not just...!" Captain Gibraltar begins to reply indignantly, but is interrupted by Discord taking a broken piece of a nearby statue and hurling it in Gibraltar's direction. Shining Armor, fast on the draw, does a "flash cast" of a shield in front of Gibraltar to deflect the stone piece away.

"Fidelitas, you can't do any more good in your state. Tell Princess Celestia we're engaging... whatever this is." Shining Armor speaks to his comrade, who is too shaken to object and begins slowly trotting away from the half-destroyed statue garden.

"So it looks like I'll have to find those alicorns myself." Discord states in a huff, crossing arms as both Gibraltar and Shining Armor angrily glare up at his floating form. "I'll deal with you two first, though."

"What does that mean?!" Shining Armor barks out indignantly.

"It's very simple, you two. We're going to play a game, and you're going to have to play by my rules." Discord answers, a sinister smile again contorting his face.

"And if we don't?" Gibraltar challenges.

"Then I teleport away from this place and start spreading that wonderful chaos throughout the city until the Princesses Celestia and Luna face me in direct combat." Discord answers again.

Gibraltar and Shining look at each other, both obviously reluctant to agree to follow whatever rules this devious creature might cook up but even more reluctant to say no and give him reason to leave the statue garden. Both of them nod at each other, then turn to face Discord again.

"What are your rules, creature?" Gibraltar asks.

Discord, for the moment overlooking the indignity of being called a "creature", replies thusly: "Rule 1 is that there is to be no teleporting allowed. Rule 2 is that all combat must be in the open, no hiding allowed. Rule 3 is that all combat must be conducted using magic, no kicking or charging or anything like that. Rule 4 is that if any of the other rules are broken, Discord automatically wins the game and I get free reign through the city."

Gibraltar and Shining Armor look at each other again. Neither of them had good reason to believe this "Discord" would follow his own rules, but again recognized the alternative was worse. Finally, they turn back once more to face Discord and Gibraltar tells him they accept the rules.

"Ooo, wonderful, the game is afoot then!" Discord eagerly exclaims, putting on a determined face again. "I can have fun enough with you two until those alicorns show their faces around here! Hit me with your best shot!"

MEANWHILE, NEAR CANTERLOT TOWER...

Princess Celestia nervously paws at the polished floor in front of the entrance to Canterlot Tower, unable to conceal her anxiety as she waited for verification of the evacuation of the visitors. She knew from the initial reports that it was indeed her great old foe Discord that was now loose in the statue garden - she quietly cursed herself for trusting the strength of the petrification spell more than she should have. Sending Guards to "play" with him could only do good as a distraction, but she dare not show her face around him yet.

Instead, all Celestia was doing was buying time enough to be able to summon the new bearers of the Elements of Harmony - the student Twilight Sparkle and her new friends in Ponyville - to use them in combat against him, as Celestia and Luna could not use them against him now. Her thoughts flitted to Luna, who would undoubtedly blame herself for this, and Cadance, who did not know about Discord any more than the rest of Equestria did. Celestia rued the thought of having to tell the truth to at least Cadance and the Element Bearers, for it would eventually lead to widespread knowledge of that truth she had worked so hard to suppress. But that was a worry for another time.

The sound of galloping hooves approaching broke Celestia's thoughts, and she turned to see a rushing pegasus, which she recognized as Lieutenant Captain Stratocumulus. He skidded to a stop in front of her, then saluted his princess.

"Are all the visitors evacuated from the castle grounds?" Celestia asks.

"Yes, Your Highness! The entire castle is in lockdown." Stratocumulus answers.

"Good. What about the Captain and Shining Armor?" Celestia asks again.

"Last I heard they were headed to the statue garden along with Fidelitas!"

"Even if all three of them working together attacked him it might not be enough." Celestia states, sadly shaking her head. "I want to make it perfectly clear this is not a small-time foe we are facing, and we still may need to use the Elements of Harmony secured behind this door. Do not ask me for more information, because you will learn it soon enough. Did the Captain leave you in operational authority?"

"That's correct, Your Highness."

"Then go back and supervise the lockdown - talking to me here will do no good for anyone."

"Understood, I am heading to the Captain's office now!" Stratocumulus answers, quickly turning and galloping away again.

Once his hoofsteps had faded from hearing, Celestia's thoughts started flitting again to Luna and Cadance. The alicorn princess now galloped away herself, realizing she had not yet written the distress message that would need to be sent to Spike to summon the Element Bearers, but also dreading the thought of what condition she might find Luna and Cadance in upon hearing the news of Discord's release...

The Fall of Gibraltar

"Come on, let's see what you got!" Discord taunts Captain Gibraltar and Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor again in the half-ruined statue garden.

Shining Armor obliges with the first move, casting a glowing, magenta-colored bubble around the floating draconequus. Discord is a bit surprised by the "opening move" at first, but it only takes a moment before he recovers, giving a confident smile as he extends out an eagle-claw "finger" to try to pop the bubble from inside. He is surprised again when the bubble does not immediately pop as expected, but instead deforms like thick plastic around the "finger".

Gibraltar, watching from beside Shining, notices a grimace flash on Shining's face when Discord made contact with the bubble. This suggested, once again, Discord was a very dangerous foe. Shining kept the bubble up, and again Discord tries to pop it, this time giving a more determined push. When contact was made for the second time, Shining's grimace appears again, and Gibraltar can see him gritting his teeth as he "pushes" back against the effort of the draconequus.

Discord now changes his expression to determination as he pushes against the bubble harder still, using both the eagle and lion "arms" now against the glowing barrier. Shining Armor squeezes his eyes shut and begins snorting as his resistance continues, but Gibraltar suspects the barrier won't last much longer. It only takes a few more moments before the barrier is indeed finally breached - the bubble shatters and the broken pieces dissipate into magenta-colored vapor.

Gibraltar looks over at Shining, who is wincing with his eyes still screwed shut. The Guard Captain knows that, like Fidelitas, Shining could get the "migraine" headaches when his magic was pushed too hard, and he was alarmed that he saw the same signs of an oncoming headache in Shining.

"You alright?" the Captain naturally asks his subordinate.

"Yes, I am now." Shining Armor answers, his eyes opening again into a cross-eyed expression that he shakes off quickly, resuming his defiant look in the direction of the floating Discord.

"I'll admit I underestimated that, but let's see what else you have to entertain Discord." the draconequus taunts one more time, a smug expression on his face as he crosses the lion and eagle "forearms" over what would be his chest.

Captain Gibraltar now knew he was the pony that had to step up and make the next "move" against Discord, even though he was out of practice with his own special talent - part of the reason for it being that way was because it could compromise the foundations of the city of the Canterlot, built as it was onto a mountainside. However, he certainly believed Princess Celestia would forgive him later for trying to use it against this very serious foe.

Gibraltar's light brown horn begins glowing with a magic that is a darker shade of brown. A few moments later, cracking and rumbling sounds are heard filling the air throughout the statue garden, prompting the floating draconequus to look around for the source of the noise. Gibraltar grits his teeth, and a pillar of rock shoots up from underneath Discord!

The draconequus, again taken by surprise by the move, only saved himself from getting knocked out of his floating position by a quick teleport. When he reappeared, he looked around again in confusion, and Gibraltar had another pillar shoot up from the ground, this one missing Discord by mere inches and prompting a startled yelp out of him.

The draconequus turned to look at the pair of unicorn opponents, now slowly marching toward him in sync with growling expressions, and responds with an amused expression of his own. With a poof of magic, a black 10-gallon hat, like what would be seen in human western-themed movies, appears being held in his eagle-claw "hand". Discord then puts it on his head, and as he adjusts its position both Shining Armor and Gibraltar notice an eight-headed arrow symbol on it, rendered as a silvery ornament centered on the front of the hat. In retrospect, they recognized it as a vital clue that Discord was indeed the "chaotic one" the Agents of Chaos had been trying so hard to summon.

"Wee-haw! Now we got ourselves a real showdown! Come on you two, let me see what ya got! Discord's gonna have real fun with you two!" Discord taunts one more time, this time adding a "western twang" to his voice, similar to the one Twilight would recognize with Applejack and her relatives.

MEANWHILE, IN CANTERLOT CASTLE...

Princess Celestia's heart was in her throat as she all but skidded into her private office. She was dreading seeing Luna and/or Cadance already waiting there, or at the very least a bunch of ponies wanting her to give some explanation for what was going on. The fact that the office was instead empty was probably the biggest relief she would get for a while.

She stations herself in front of the desk normally used by Raven, her secretary, and uses unicorn magic to place a sheet of parchment and inkwell on the desk. She then manipulates a quillpen to dip the tip into the inkwell, but does not pull it out yet.

"Screen on." the alicorn princess says to what seems like nothing in particular, and moments later a rectangle of yellow magic appears in front of Celestia's sightline, powered by her own unicorn magic.

An image appears in the yellow rectangle, showing the half-destroyed statue garden with Discord floating around being chased by Captain Gibraltar and Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor. The two guard officers were alternately using their powers trying to get a hit on the floating draconequus.

"I suppose I'll have to write off the whole statue garden when all this is said and done..." Celestia sighs out as on the "screen" Discord dodges a shield "wall" Shining Armor tried to put in his path, followed by a boulder hurled in the same general direction by Gibraltar's magic, which in turn rebounds off the wall and pulverizes a statue that happened to end up in the way of the rebound trajectory.

She now uses the magic to lift the tip of the quillpen out of the ink, and as the battle continues on the floating screen between Discord and the two high-ranking Royal Guard members Princess Celestia scratches out her message: a short, to-the-point, "get here as fast as you can" summons addressed to Twilight Sparkle and her fellow Element Bearers over in Ponyville. Celestia rolls up the scroll, but decides not to send it yet.

She continues watching the ruination of the statue garden on the screen, as rough pillars of stone shoot up among the statues, provoked by Gibraltar's special "earthbending" talent. Shining Armor, in addition to trying to lay barriers in Discord's path (mostly in vain), had to pay attention to deflect away boulders Discord would break off the pillars and hurl at the unicorn opponents. The distraction performance was clearly nearly reaching its end, and Celestia debated on whether to send the message right away or only after it was obvious all containment efforts had failed.

The sun princess was interrupted by hearing Discord through the "screen": "I'm getting quite tired of this! Celestia and Luna, I know you can hear me somehow, why don't you show your chicken-feathered hides and fight me yourself?!"

"Chicken...!" Celestia replies indignantly, her feathers ruffling and shaking her head with an irritated snort.

Mere moments later, the unicorns finally score a "hit" on the distracted Discord as the draconequus slams headlong into a shield barrier after having to dodge a pillar that shot up directly in his path. He rubs his head, observing the statue garden had turned into an obstacle course of stone pillars that Shining Armor and Gibraltar were darting around as they closed on Discord's position.

"Alright, that's enough, playtime's over!" Discord shouted, once again having reached the state of irritated impatience. He dives down to a lower hovering altitude, now zooming headlong at the converging unicorns.

Gibraltar and Shining Armor pull alongside each other at full gallop, intending to ram into the draconequus at full speed and hopefully deliver a nasty blow. Instead, the chaos being extends his eagle-claw and lion-paw "hands" forward, and they suddenly grow to much larger sizes. The two unicorns hit the oversized hands, sending both of them back staggering, and while still dazed Discord zooms up to them, using his now normal-sized again hands to casually pluck the horns off their heads as easily as an apple could be picked off a tree!

The still watching Princess Celestia realized that both Gibraltar and Shining Armor were in serious trouble, confirmed on the screen by the flabbergasted looks and patting foreheads with hooves where the horns should have been. She debated whether to try to send a message to them herself, but she feared Discord would use that to trace back to her current location, so did not follow through that idea.

"Looking for these?" Discord smugly asks, holding the detached horns up as he floated just in front of a partly-destroyed statue.

"CHEATER! GIVE THOSE BACK!" Gibraltar shouts at the top of his lungs, too worked up in the heat of war to ask questions of how Discord had managed to do exactly what he just did.

"If you want them back, you'll have to come get them!" Discord taunts yet again, holding them out toward his opponents in a teasing manner.

Shining Armor had enough presence of mind to realize that Discord was trying to bait them into breaking one of his rules, but could not stop the worked-up Gibraltar from spontaneously starting a charge. Horror filled his face as Shining realized that Discord was about to "win" the game because of that charge.

"CAPTAIN, NO!" Shining Armor shouts as Gibraltar charges into a leap in Discord's direction.

As she watches, Princess Celestia gasps in horror as Discord teleports away from his current position and Gibraltar to slam his forelegs into the base of the statue, a sickening crack heard through the screen. The Guard Captain falls on his side, crying and shouting in incredible pain, as Shining Armor races up beside him. He looks back and forth between the pained Captain and smugly smiling Discord.

"I'm afraid that Rule 3 was broken with that charging attack. That means Rule 4 takes effect and I win the game!" Discord states with gleeful maliciousness. "If the alicorns won't face me themselves, then I am going to have tons of fun all across the city! Oh, and you can have these back, I don't need them any more."

Discord does a snap with his lion paw "hand", and the horns held in the eagle claw "hand" disappear in a flash to reappear on the heads of the unicorns they came from, as if they had never been removed in the first place. Shining confirms the return of his horn by feel, and can see the same for the agonized Gibraltar.

"There's two old acquaintances I still have yet to meet. Maybe in the city I can draw them out into battle. Ta-ta, it's been fun but I really must be going. See you in the City of Chaos!" Discord mocks one last time before disappearing completely in a poof, leaving the ruins of the statue garden to more broadly spread his chaos in Canterlot...

Certainly the watching Celestia was quite concerned about the failure of the containment effort, and the possibility of having to battle Discord in the city itself, but she was also concerned about the condition of her Guard Captain, so she did not immediately try to find where Discord had poofed himself off to. Instead, she continued focusing the images on the screen on Gibraltar.

"Sir! Sir! Talk to me, sir, what's wrong?!" Shining Armor was pleading, trying to get Gibraltar to speak through his intense pain.

"My... front legs... broken... both..." Gibraltar gasps out, and quickly Shining can see that the older officer can put no weight on either foreleg as he tries in vain to stand back up.

"Sir, I'll carry you on my back!" Shining offers, with the need being obvious to get Gibraltar to medical attention.

"My time... is over... You are... in charge... Captain."

Gibraltar's words landed with a heavy thud on both Shining Armor and the watching Princess Celestia. Celestia knew that with that kind of injury, Gibraltar's career as Captain of the Guard was certainly over. For a long time, Celestia had wanted Shining as Captain of the Guard, but didn't want him earning it this way. Still, the emergency nature of the situation meant she dared not consider objecting to it.

She used a pulse of magic to switch the image to an overview of Canterlot, where clouds of cotton candy raining chocolate milk were starting to appear over the houses and businesses of the city. Whatever illusion she had of control of the situation were now gone, but she dared not play the card of summoning the Element Bearers until she was absolutely sure all other options for fighting him had been exhausted...

The Hope of Chaos

The unicorn Royal Guard officer Shining Armor slowly - much more slowly than he would've liked - moved through the halls of Canterlot with Captain Gibraltar laying heavy on his back, trying to make it to the Guard's medical unit after Gibraltar had broken both of his front legs in the battle against Discord. In the slow, trudging march through the castle hallways, Shining Armor passed a few other Guards rushing through the hallways, apparently responding to something else that was happening outside. Shining suspected they were trying to respond to something the strange creature "Discord" was doing outside the castle walls, but had no way to confirm this.

About half of the way to his intended destination, Shining found the way blocked by a three-wide formation of Guards coming directly at him. Fortunately, he recognizes the Guard in the middle - Lieutenant Captain Fidelitas - and the formation slows to a halt when they see Shining and who he's carrying. Fidelitas then moves ahead of the pegasi escorts and stops directly in front of Shining.

"Princess Celestia sent me back to help you, but it looks like it's already too late." the afternoon shift commander comments.

"Both his front legs were broken in fighting 'Discord', who or whatever that is. And whatever it is, it has escaped into the city. Help me get him to medical." Shining Armor reports slowly, grunting under the weight of his load.

"I'm presuming you're Acting Captain, even though Stratocumulus still has operational authority?" Fidelitas asks as he gestures his escorts forward with a foreleg.

"That's correct." Shining answers.

"Understood, we'll take it from here. I suggest you update the Princesses as soon as your hooves can get you to them." Fidelitas states as he and the two escorts slowly help Gibraltar off Shining's back, splitting the load evenly between the three of them to allow faster movement.

As soon as Shining was relieved of his burden, he did not waste any time following the suggestion given him - it had been his intention to go to Princess Celestia anyway, but wasn't sure if he should make a side trip to check on Luna and Cadance, which he last remembered them being together in an "overnight party" of sorts. Now with him being Acting Captain, Shining had no choice but to go to Celestia first...

A MINUTE LATER...

Princess Celestia was so transfixed by what she was seeing on the floating magic screen that she did not even notice Shining Armor's approach until hearing the double-time hoofsteps behind her, and even then her turning response was slow. The behavior must've surprised Shining, because almost immediately he stops and gives a salute, the only thing he apparently felt comfortable doing at that moment.

"It's alright, Captain. Here, watch beside me." Celestia states in a lifeless, almost numb tone, giving a weak gesture toward Shining. Shining gave a hesitant look for just a fraction of a second before sitting down beside the sun princess.

Immediately he was struck by the empty resignation on Princess Celestia's face, and his mind emptied of all other thoughts as he alternated between glancing at her face and the images of the city of Canterlot on the magic screen. Both Shining and Celestia could see vain attempts to fight back against a magic effect generated by the draconequus Discord as he teleported his way around the city, with no apparent pattern or ultimate objective.

"He's making a mess of the city." Shining weakly comments, recognizing an unnerving parallel between the current situation and the one of "Nightmare Moon" not that long ago.

"He will continue making chaos until the Elements of Harmony can stop him." Celestia quietly and cryptically replies. "But he does not know yet, and I don't want to give him the satisfaction of finding out. At least, not directly."

"You know who this is?!" Shining Armor exclaims in shock.

Princess Celestia looks down at the polished floor, knowing she needed to answer the question. She inhales and blows out a large breath, as if recognizing she couldn't avoid the topic anymore, before finally giving it with pleading eyes: "Yes, I do, Captain. I'm afraid you and everypony else will soon learn more than I ever wanted to tell them about Discord, but for right now you should understand he is 'the chaotic one', the being those rebels put their hopes in success in."

"He was imprisoned in stone, just like 'Nightmare Moon' was imprisoned in the moon. So the same stellar alignment that allowed her to get free..." Shining begins following the logic trail.

"Also weakened his prison. I did not want to give those rebels even the smallest glimmer of hope, so I tried to pretend nothing was wrong. That was a mistake, and one all Equestria will suffer for now..." Celestia finishes, again looking down at the floor as she speaks.

"But the Elements of Harmony can stop him, right? Why are we delaying then, when there could be lives on the line, Your Highness?! Summon Twily and her friends from Ponyville to attack him with the Elements!" Shining Armor pleads.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple, Captain. Your sister does not know of him any more than any pony else besides myself and Luna." Celestia replies with a sad shake of her head. "And if I send the summoning message now, she will not believe me because Ponyville itself has not been affected yet."

Shining opened his mouth to try to object, but closed it again when the image on the screen switched to one showing the still-peaceful and undisturbed town center of Ponyville. Instead, Shining decided to try a different tack based on the mention of Luna: "So you and Luna worked together to put him in that stone prison in the first place, before you exiled her yourself with the Elements?"

"That's correct, Captain." Celestia sadly affirms. "But because of that exile we cannot repeat that effort again. I can only act under the assumption Discord has not figured this out yet."

"But Your Highness, we can't just sit here and do nothing when we have the solution...!" Shining begins to object.

The objection was interrupted by the sound of hooves screeching on the polished floors, followed by a loud whinny and heavy thud landing just behind Shining Armor and Celestia. Both turned around briefly to see a pegasus Guard having done a faceplant on the floor in an unsuccessful attempt to bring himself to a halt. He gives a frustrated moan as he slowly gets back on his hooves, only his dignity bruised.

"What's going on now, Guard?" Shining Armor anxiously asks as Celestia turns back toward looking at the magic screen.

"Princess Cadance demands to see you immediately, sir! She needs your help with Princess Luna!" the guard exclaims.

Alarm spreads across Shining Armor's face - he glances back toward Princess Celestia, but almost immediately realizes that the alicorn princess will give him no help or even advice in her state. Instead, he simply rushes out of the room, the messenger Guard scrambling to follow, leaving Princess Celestia to her uncertainties and regrets. She did not want to summon the Element Bearers until the very last moment, even if she would gain hatred and criticism for that decision...

"Q" Havoc

Princess Celestia continued to watch as Discord continued his "rampage" through the city of Canterlot, in as much his idea of "rampaging" was random acts of chaos at random locations in the city. The street patrolling Guards would've been able to do little against it, of course, and it was cold comfort that so far Discord had only kept himself within the city walls of Canterlot. The sun princess was sure any distress message to Twilight Sparkle and her fellow Element Bearers would not be believed until it affected them directly, but that fact would also doom the citizens of Canterlot to his torture - something that would be extensively used against Celestia later...

Looking around after his latest teleport, the draconequus Discord spots a sign over an unassuming white stone building: "'The Mule' and Associates - Attorneys for Hire". His eyes glow as he immediately decides to make this his next target for chaos, shrinking down and assuming a cobra-like form small enough to slip through the mail slot on the front door.

Several ponies were waiting in the area, unaware of anything wrong outside. They became very aware of the problem, though, when the snake-like form Discord had assumed started growing larger and larger in front of them. He relished the fear and screams he heard coming from them, hissing and flaring the cobra hood as he grew big enough to almost touch the ceiling as he crawled the length of the waiting hall! Some ponies ran to a corner, petrified with fear, while others cowered and covered their heads as he went by.

Finally Discord in his giant snake form stopped next to a door, pressing his head up beside it to hear a monotone voice drooling on from the other side, completely unaware of what was going on. The now-thoroughly scared ponies in the waiting room he let exit - he wasn't in the mood to torture them more, not yet anyway. Instead, he simply rammed his way through the door, accompanied by a blast of magic that changed the cobra form into something more colorful and feathery - a human might have called it a "quetzalcoatl".

Unsurprisingly, the door suddenly blowing off its hinges by the "quetzalcoatl" stops the proceeding dead in its tracks. The earth pony lawyer, wearing a long "sad" face, is immediately struck by curiousity instead of fear as the couple he had been helping scamper to a far away corner, cowering in fear as the ponies in the waiting room have.

"Hmmm, I was expecting 'The Mule' to be an actual mule, not a sssssad-faced earth pony." the "quetzalcoatl" Discord spits out. "No matter, this place is deathly dull, needs a lot more life in it!"

Discord's eyes glow, and the shelves full of books and knick-knacks lining the walls of the room begin vibrating, as if an earthquake was shaking the building. Some items on the shelf fall down the floor, and anything that doesn't shatter begins levitating on its own, the books flapping like bats and begin to zoom around the room! The cowering couple begins screaming as the "book bats" begin dive-bombing in their general direction, Discord relishing their fear as they dodge the attacks.

Meanwhile, the lawyer grabs a scrub brush from one corner of the room and waves it all over the place, trying to fight off the flying "book bats" attacking his clients. Discord hisses, eyes glowing, and the "book bats" now switch to attacking him. He does try to fight them off, but several impacts from the heavy books finally knock the wind out of him, and Discord switches to a hissing laughter as he falls onto his back.

"Been fun seeing you fight, but I must be going!" Discord comments, flaring open previously folded up wings in feathers of brilliant colors. He begins to flap them and take off, blowing everything around and smashing through the ceiling in the process, emerging into sunlight again still as the brightly-colored "quetzalcoatl" flying above the streets of Canterlot.

Discord hisses down at the several guards arriving at the half-destroyed legal office, two of which are pegasi that quickly take off to attack him. His sleek body and powerful wings easily dodge the initial charge, the tail lashing out to pluck one of the patrolling guards out of the sky. As the other attacker comes around, Discord whips his tail down, slinging the unfortunate pegasus down into the partly-ruined building below him.

The chaos entity caps his accomplishment by getting nearly snout-to-snout with the other pegasus, his huge hissing and fanged form surely capable of soiling pants had the pegasus been wearing them at the time. Finally, Discord shrinks back to his "typical" draconequus appearance, floating and laughing on his back at the pure fear on the face of the pegasus Guard, before teleporting away again to continue spreading his chaos in a different part of the city...

Author's Note

(Two references and a pun in the title - see if you can figure them all out! :raritywink: )

Spoiled Expectations

"What's going on over there?"

"Oh, just the usual pleb stuff, honey. Just ignore it."

"But the clouds don't look right, and neither does the rain coming out of them..."

"And exactly why is this our concern, Filthy?" Spoiled Rich answers in a question to her husband, the two laying on beach chairs placed on the second-floor balcony of their Canterlot townhouse. "Clouds are supposed to be a pegasi thing, remember? If there's a real problem, our precious Diamond Tiara and her friend Silver Spoon will explain it all to us when they get done with their castle tour. Now be quiet, I'm still working on my tan..."

The husband, Filthy Rich, just sighs and returns to his previous laying on his back position. After his filly and friend were finished with their Canterlot Castle tour, the two were supposed to spend the weekend at the Canterlot townhouse instead of going back to Ponyville with the rest of their class. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were not expected for some time yet, so Filthy gave a little shrug and tried to get back into the rare opportunity to relax.

That didn't last long before one the "not right" clouds (actually the cotton candy clouds Discord had previously generated over Canterlot and were now randomly moving across the city) stopped directly over the balcony where the two wealthy earth ponies were trying to catch some sun. Filthy Rich looks over worriedly at his wife, who's face contorts, unsurprisingly, into indignation over the sun being blocked.

"Hey, whoever's up there, I'll have you know that I am not just some low-life commoner you can just...!" Spoiled Rich begins ranting, only to be interrupted by a clap of thunder and bolt of lightning.

Before she can start again, the cloud begins intensely raining down a brown liquid directly onto the balcony, prompting a horrified scream from Spoiled Rich as she and her husband rush to get under cover of a roof. Mr. Rich slides the glass door closed behind him to keep the liquid from seeping inside the townhouse. The raining liquid quickly covers the surface of the balcony and begins trickling down to the street level as the couple watch through the glass doors.

"HOW RUDE AND INSENSITIVE!" Mrs. Spoiled Rich shouts in indignity as she tries to find something to dry herself off with. "I sincerely hope that wasn't a waste containment cloud that's dumping all over our front facade..."

Mr. Filthy Rich sniffs at his coat soaked in the liquid - his wife's concern was a fair one due to an unfortunate habit of young pegasi troublemakers deciding to squeeze out the contents of "waste containment clouds" on earth ponies as a rude effort to make fun of their "lower" social status. The expected horrible stench that would've accompanied such liquid, however, simply does not exist.

Instead, Mr. Rich sucks a bit of liquid of his coat - which produces an absolutely disgusted look from his wife - and then smacks his lips a few times trying to place what he was tasting. Finally, he gives a verdict with a very confused expression: "This is chocolate milk. A pink cloud producing chocolate milk rain..."

"What are you even babbling on about, Filthy?! What you just said doesn't make any sense!" the wife exclaims, having finally obtained a towel to use to try to dry herself off.

"SENSE? WHAT FUN IS THERE IN MAKING SENSE?" a very loud voice booms out before Mr. Rich has a chance to respond, the vibrations rumbling through the whole townhouse.

The Rich couple whip heads around, trying to place where the unknown booming voice is coming from. A few seconds later, they hear a pair of screams, both coming from the first floor of the townhouse. To their horror, they also recognize who is screaming: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, even though neither of them were supposed to be in the townhouse at that time!

Without another word, Filthy Rich races toward and down the stairs leading to the townhouse's first floor, his wife reluctantly following behind. When Filthy reaches the bottom of the stairs, he again whips his head around, trying to spot the two fillies he had heard screaming. After a few moments, he indeed spots them, pushed into a corner by the form of what he could only describe as a "composite creature" - later recognized as Discord himself - who's tail was also knocking around and smashing up expensive furniture and display items.

The "composite creature" pauses briefly to see first bewilderment, then anger on Filthy Rich's face, which prompts him to chuckle as a result. As Spoiled Rich now joins her husband at the bottom of the stairs, Filthy Rich asks the creature what's so funny.

"You ponies are very predictable - parental instincts and all that. There was very good reason I used to be in charge of this kingdom." was the response of the "composite creature" Discord.

"What?!? No one is saying anything that is making any sense!" Spoiled Rich exclaims in frustration.

"Just this... whoever... being here is making no sense. And being very destructive as well!" Filthy Rich replies.

"But as I just said, what fun is there in making sense?" Discord rhetorically asks again, grabbing a teapot and one of a set of teacups from a display case. "Don't mind if I stay for tea, do you?"

"Yes I do mind, and I have no idea what black magic is letting you do that!" Filthy exclaims in reply as he watches Discord somehow pour himself a cup of tea from the teapot, despite both pot and cup having been in the display case just seconds before!

"Bah, your types are no fun!" Discord spits out, tossing the teapot behind him and having it shatter against a wall just after he speaks.

He then holds up the teacup as if to drink the tea supposedly inside it, but pony jaws drop open when it is the teacup instead that is slurped up by Discord, leaving a teacup-shaped floating shape of hot, steaming tea in mid-air! A moment later, Discord snaps his eagle-claw "hand", and the floating shape of tea explodes in a bright flash, which also hides his teleportation away from the Rich's Canterlot townhouse.

Both Rich parents shake off the effects of the flash, and see the "composite creature" is gone. A quick look out the first floor windows shows the chocolate milk rain is still going on outside, prompting cautious curiousity from those watching from nearby. Both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon slowly crawl out of the corner they had been trapped in, looking just as baffled and shaken as the adults were.

"Do you two have any idea what exactly is going on here?!" Spoiled Rich exclaims, again in frustration.

"It wasn't our fault! That thing looked like the 'Statue of Discord' that was part of the castle tour!" Silver Spoon pleads.

"Yeah, Mom! Our school tour got cut short because of those 'Cutie Mark Crusaders' that fought in front of that statue, that's why we're home early! THEY must've done something, somehow!" Diamond Tiara adds.

"So you're saying those low-life 'Cutie Mark Crusaders' are behind this, at least partly?" Spoiled Rich asks the fillies, her face assuming a smug curiousity that uneases Filthy Rich.

"Dear, did I tell you yet that one of those 'Crusaders' is...?" Filthy Rich begins to ask, referring to Apple Bloom being of the "Cutie Mark Crusaders".

"Quiet Filthy, I want to hear more from the fillies, not you!" Spoiled Rich snaps out, silencing her husband and making the fillies the unquestioned center of attention for the moment.

Filthy Rich sighs, recognizing that for the moment it was useless to try to keep his daughter and her friend from telling his wife what she wanted to hear. He knew that Apple Bloom being one of the "Cutie Mark Crusaders" would lead to future problems, but his wife was not, and likely would not ever be, interested in inconvenient truths like that one...

Eclipsed

Acting Captain Shining Armor's heart pounded in his chest as he raced toward where he knew Princess Luna and Princess Cadance were staying. Although Luna and Cadance had been given separate suites in Canterlot Castle, on this particular day both alicorns were engaging in an extended "sleepover" of sorts.

Shining Armor was quite familiar with what went on in those "sleepovers", something that Celestia had quietly encouraged to build better relations between the two alicorns after the understandably rocky start between them. The stallion himself had not been involved in those "sleepovers", but knew from witnessing the results it involved a lot of movie-watching, hardcore gaming action and sometimes "experimentation" of the cosmetic or cooking variety. Sure, the mess would drive the staff crazy, but Shining always told them to grin and bear it, knowing Celestia wouldn't have had it any other way.

If something had gone wrong here, though, the results could be quite destructive. It had already been a very bizarre day, and the last thing he wanted to be doing was trying to calm down a pair of tempermental alicorns. He knew he should've been in the Captain's office, trying to reorganized a command that was thrown in disarray by the release of "Discord". He also knew that Gibraltar, currently en route for treatment for his broken front legs, would expect no less behavior out of him in this hour of crisis.

But Acting Captain Shining Armor also knew that Princess Celestia would provide no further help to him, or any other fellow subordinate for that matter. At least against "Nightmare Moon", her inaction could be excused, but it surely was not excusable this time, and knowledge of that fact was nothing short of extremely frustrating to the high-ranking Guard officer. There might have been a time and place where keeping the existence of "Discord" a state secret was justifiable, but it was certainly not the case now. And why hadn't Twilight, with all her love of books and knowledge, found out about the existence herself, or asked Celestia about it? Too many questions, not enough answers, and when the answers would surely come it would be to the detriment of the kingdom as a whole...

Muffled but still loud crashing and breaking sounds coming from the other side of a wall snap Shining out of his thoughts. As he closes on Luna's suite, he sees a pair of the pegasi day staff leaning against the door leading into the suite, as if they were trying to prevent something inside from getting out.

"What is going on here?!" Shining Armor naturally asks the pegasi pushing against the door.

"I don't know, sir, we just heard Princess Cadance yell to keep these doors closed no matter what!" one of the pegasi answers, shortly followed by the door shuddering from an impact coming from the other side.

"Well, Cadance wanted me here, so open it up! That's an order!" Shining Armor barks back in return.

The pegasi staff exchange nervous glances, slowly open the door just enough for Shining to slip through, then slam the door back shut as soon as he's through...

Shining was not quite sure what he was expecting, but a half-destroyed room greeted his vision as soon as his eyes adjusted to the lower lighting level in the room, which was usually kept dark to make it easier for Luna to sleep during daytime hours. The previous decor of the room, all roughly matching the theme of "Nightmare Night", had all been overturned or smashed on the floor, and Shining quickly realized the suite was going to need a complete overhaul once all this was done.

"SHINING! SHINING ARMOR! OVER HERE!" Cadance's voice is heard calling out, and Shining rapidly pivots to see where it was coming from.

He quickly spots the outline of Cadance's form, holding on for dear life while being tossed about by what could only a bull-shaped cloud of glowing bluish smoke! It phases Shining Armor, but only for a moment before remembering Princess Luna's own shape-shifting powers.

"Shining, do something! She's completely out of control!" Cadance pleads, just before getting tossed off the solid "smoke cloud". She sails past Shining Armor and into a bookcase, books and knick-knacks tumbling to the floor from the impact. The junior alicorn ends up on her back among the scattered books, moaning more out of the indignation she had suffered than any actual physical injury.

The Acting Captain whirls around to see Luna, now more obviously taking on the form of a bull, snorting and pawing the floor with a forehoof as if ready to charge in his general direction. Shining realizes that Luna must've taken the news of Discord's release even worse than he expected.

"WE WILL ONLY GIVE ONE WARNING, LEAVE US ALONE!" Princess Luna blasts out in her Royal Canterlot Voice.

"Luna, Your Highness, please, don't go blaming yourself for this too!" Shining Armor pleads, taking a stab at why Luna was acting so aggressively. "Twily and her friends can still use the Elements, all is not lost!"

"And WHEN are they going to get here, Lieutenant Captain?! Cadance will not say anything to me!" Luna grits out again.

"She doesn't know anything, and neither do I!" Shining shouts back as he slowly helps Cadance back onto her hooves.

"What?! She did not even tell her own adopted niece about him either?!" Luna exclaims in disbelief, which at least has the effect of calming her raging aggression.

"What even is this 'Discord' anyway, Shining? The only thing Aunt Celly's ever told me about 'Discord' is that statue in the statue garden..." Cadance begins to say as Luna shifts back into her standard alicorn shape.

"... A statue that is now living and free to cause chaos. I should know, it's kicked the flanks of everypony that's confronted it, including me." Shining Armor explains. "And Twily doesn't know anything about it either, which means she won't believe any messages Celestia sends to her until it attacks outside Canterlot. At least, that's what Celestia has told me."

"Our sister is being extremely stupid right now. She should be making sure they are on their way to Canterlot already!" Luna exclaims as she sits on haunches and crosses her forelegs in a huffing attitude.

"For once, I am not going to argue against Luna's point." Shining Armor comments, giving a stern glance in Cadance's direction as a warning to not try to object.

Cadance does speak anyway despite the warning, but not in the objection Shining thought she was going to give: "But none of this is actually helping anything! What exactly are we supposed to do now with this... whatever-it-is loose in the city?"

"If I knew an answer to that question, I would already be doing it." Shining Armor answers. "The only thing I can suggest is that you two will have to work together to help defend the castle from his attack, if need be. Just until Twily and her friends do finally show up and can use the Elements of Harmony against him."

"As usual, Lieutenant Captain, your logical argument has a solid foundation. Do I owe an apology to Cadance?" Luna asks, looking down awkwardly as she does so.

"Apologies won't be necessary, Auntie, just as long as you don't do it again." Cadance replies in a quiet attempt at reassurance, adding in a shy smile as she does so.

"And, Your Highness, Captain Gibraltar is out of commission right now thanks to that 'Discord'! I've been appointed Acting Captain in his place, so I am really needed some other place than here!" Shining Armor quickly adds on.

"Go then, Captain, because the Guard needs you now in the hour of emergency." Princess Luna states, which Shining realizes is as close to a dismissal as he was going to get out of her.

"Yes, Your Highness." Shining Armor answers with a salute before turning to look at the confused Cadance.

"What can I do? What should I do?" Cadance asks, obviously having no clue what she should do next.

"Stay with Luna, keep her calm, prepare to defend the palace from attack if necessary." Shining Armor answers. "Trying to talk to Celestia will do no good, and your love magic won't be of much use against this monster. The best option we have is to try to get things under control as best we can and hold on until the Element Bearers show up from Ponyville."

Cadance's expression turns very thoughtful for a second, then she nods toward Shining, recognizing she didn't have a better idea that what he'd proposed.

"Alright, you be careful out there though." Cadance asks, giving Shining a quick pecking kiss on the side of his face.

Shining blushes a deep red from the display of affection as he turns away and starts back toward the Captain's office, where he would take interim command until the entire situation could be sorted out...

Between Hope and Despair

Canterlot SuperMax Prison. Supposedly, these retrofitted former mine shafts were the place Princess Celestia confined the worst of Equestrian society. That facade, however, had worn rather thin after the revelation of the truth of "Nightmare Moon", and the draconequus called Discord would completely demolish it.

The old mine shafts were really occupied by the petty criminal riff-raff ubiquitous in any large city, and their guards were former E.U.P. Guard membership that had either fallen out of political favor or were "discharged for criminal behavior" and quietly transferred to this assignment instead. The necessity of keeping the true nature of the place a tight secret meant that sadistic and dictatorial patterns were allowed to run unchecked, which would promote later resentment against Princess Celestia and had previously funneled potential recruits into the Agents of Chaos when they were still an active organization.

Such an arrangement was no match for the loose draconequus Discord though, who could - and did - teleport wherever he wanted throughout the complex at will. First, he appeared in a few different random places in the shafts in order to confuse and agitate the prison staff, then warped himself into what passed for the security center in the prison.

Discord had to stifle a chuckle when he saw the room - really, a sleepy old stallion watching a small blurry TV which cycled through several different feeds supposedly from security cameras. After Discord put the old stallion out with a strong puff of sleeping gas, he grabbed a yellowed, ticking clock off the wall nearby and pressed down on the moving second hand, which caused the tip to break off and the clock to stop.

True to the point of Discord causing things to not make sense, this also stopped time for the entire prison complex and everything in it! By manipulating the hands on the clock he was holding, Discord was able to control the flow of time in the prison, and by taking advantage of this temporal trickery the prison guards fell one-by-one, some fatally according to Discord's ever-undecipherable whims, leaving the prison without a single civilian to oppose Discord's takeover. From the outside world, it appeared that all the guards fell either injured or dead by an unseen force almost simultaneously.

Finally, while keeping the local "bubble" of time stopped, Discord made the lock on each and every cell vanish with a "snap" of his eagle-claw "fingers". He let time flow forward again, which caused the unlocked cell doors to swing open, and while the prisoners were trying to figure out what exactly was going on, Discord broadcast a message over the prison system's PA: "The hour of chaos has come. Assemble in the mess hall, and I will lead you to glory."

Besides the local petty criminals, there were a few "harder" inmates, as well as some other ponies that were suspected to be members of or sympathizers with the Agents of Chaos, all of which were awaiting trial at the time. The harder criminals and ex-Agents of Chaos members quickly joined forces, finishing the job Discord had started with the civilian guards and then shepherding the remaining inmates into the mess hall where Discord was waiting for them.

"Welcome one, welcome all!" Discord exclaimed as ragged groups of former inmates, some bloodied and battered from finishing off the remaining guards, began filtering into the mess hall. The draconequus had dressed himself in all the trappings of regal finery, although the glitter was suppressed by the darkness inside the former mine workings.

Most of the former prisoners observed Discord with caution and skepticism. A few, mostly the former Agents of Chaos and their sympathizers, began bowing and prostrating before him, which pleased the draconequus greatly. Yet others took one look at the chaos god and cowered in fear, searching for opportunity to get out at earliest possible convenience without risking upsetting him.

"Ah, so it seems like that some of you still remember who I am after all, those alicorns didn't wash your brains clean of my memory like with everypony else." Discord exclaimed with a devious, cat-like smile.

He pauses for a moment for dramatic effect, allowing a few more ponies to join the ranks bowing before him, before tossing out his offer: "I am in need of volunteers to spread my chaos outside the walls of Canterlot. If you volunteer now, you will be richly rewarded once I establish my reign over Equestria again!"

There was no shortage of offers and pleadings that echoed in response to the offer, which pleased Discord even more. Shortly thereafter, he began calling out the names of different places in Equestria, and after each name he points to a different pony and makes them disappear with a snap and teleporting flash of light. These ponies are dispersed to the mentioned places, sometimes ignited on fire or hideously deformed upon arrival, naturally triggering panic in the area around where they ended up.

After being satisfied with teleporting away some of the former prisoners to start spreading chaos outside Canterlot, Discord makes one final snap, warping himself and the remaining small group of "pledges" appear at the very summit of Canterlot's mountain! Once overcoming the light and temperature shock, the unicorns and earth ponies are naturally petrified into staying in place, and the draconequus quickly grabs onto the pegasi members of the group to keep them from flying away.

"Chill out, will you? I've given you your freedom, and I need good ice cubes for my chaos drink..." Discord comments among the shivering ponies, snapping "fingers" one more time. A flash appears inside the mouths of each pony in the group, and they soon realize to their horror that they can no longer speak to Discord or each other, which will spell certain death for each of them!

Discord waits just long enough for the pegasi to be left as shivering huddled masses too weak to try to fly away, and then disappears with a flash. He was now done with Canterlot, and would begin spreading chaos elsewhere in Equestria himself...

Siblings in Charge

"Guard, can you give me an update on the condition of Captain Gibraltar?"

"Yes, sir. As feared, both of his front legs are indeed broken. He will need to be in traction for quite some time, and might take an early retirement offer if Princess Celestia were to give him one."

"Thank you, Guard."

The Upper Class unicorn guard salutes and turns to leave as Acting Captain Shining Armor looks somberly at Lieutenant Captains Stratocumulus and Fidelitas as the three of them are gathered in the Captain of the Guard's office. All around are signs of half-finished work which had to be put off due to the crisis in front of them - the draconequus Discord was presumed to still be loose somewhere in Equestria, although the activity related to him seemed to have trailed off in the city itself.

"Fellow Guards, I do not think I need to reiterate the peril we find ourselves in." Shining Armor begins addressing. "The city has been badly disrupted by the actions of the enemy that was released from the statue garden, and now there are reports of his chaos manifesting elsewhere in Equestria. Do not ask help of the alicorns, because I already know they will not give it. Our only hope is in the Elements of Harmony and their new bearers."

"Surely those ponies are on their way, sir? To use the secured Elements of Harmony?" Fidelitas asks, prompting Shining Armor to awkwardly look away in response and Stratocumulus to raise eyebrows.

"Why are the princesses delaying?! The damage will only get worse the longer he is loose, and I'm not just talking about physical damage, sir!" Stratocumulus bursts out, stamping a front hoof down as he does so.

"I'm afraid, Stratocumulus, that Princess Celestia will only be persuaded to summon the Element Bearers once the enemy has affected the environs of Ponyville." Shining Armor answers, his tone almost a sigh.

Stratocumulus instantly gave a look of startled disgust, and when he looks over at Fidelitas the unicorn just shakes his head sadly. It is clear from Shining Armor's perspective the two comrades were just as unhappy with Celestia's delaying as he was.

Nevertheless, Shining Armor continues on addressing the Lieutenant Captains: "In the meantime, there are things we can do to help the situation. There are reports of clouds raining unusual liquids, so these need to be confirmed and their effects addressed. I am also expecting that our enemy will release criminals held in our prisons in order to further his own ends, so this must be prevented if it hasn't already happened or fixed if it has already happened. Those are your orders, I must stay myself to maintain the castle lockdown. You are dismissed."

The Lieutenant Captains Stratocumulus and Fidelitas give salutes, but can't hide their unhappiness at essentially being asked to be reactive rather than proactive against the effects of the chaotic foe. When they turn to leave the captain's office, Shining Armor finally allows the deep worry inside to cross his expression. This was certainly not the way he wanted his sister to come back to Canterlot, but when he got down the fundamentals it appeared he didn't have much choice in the matter...

MEANWHILE...

The horn of Princess Celestia blinks in its application of magic, causing the floating screen in front of her to change the image it was displaying. The rate at this was happening was fairly high, in the same manner a worried human might be looking through television channels looking for news about a disaster that might've affected a relative of theirs.

This intense "channel surfing" entranced Celestia so much that she did not notice the other two alicorns, Princesses Luna and Cadance, arriving inside her chamber! Luna and Cadance exchange a look as they hear Celestia muttering a bunch of place names: "Fillydelphia...Cloudsdale...Appleloosa...Manehattan..."

"Aunt Celly?" Cadance finally interjects, which prompts Celestia to look over and finally notice the other alicorns.

"Oh, sorry, I'm trying to find any evidence of Discord having attacked Ponyville..." Celestia quietly answers as the image continues to change on the floating screen.

"And WHY should that matter, sister? You should've already summoned THEM with your remote messaging connection!" Luna objects, referencing Celestia's capability to send messages to Twilight Sparkle through Spike's magic flames.

"I thought somepony told you Luna, Twilight doesn't know about Discord. She won't believe any message I send her until he affects Ponyville directly." Celestia warily explains to her sister.

"And, pray tell, who's fault is that?" Luna critically asks, prompting an angry glare from Celestia as a result.

"Aunties, we can argue about it later! There's ponies that need help NOW!" Cadance interrupts, hoping to stop a serious argument before it started.

Luna lets out a growling sigh, but holds her peace as she and Cadance walk over and sit beside Celestia to watch what was going on the screen as well. Celestia was still changing the image on the screen, but less frequently than before.

Celestia narrates what is going on as the image on the screen changes: "Prisoners loose in Canterlot... cola storm in Cloudsdale... cheese all over Fillydelphia... apple cider flooding Manehattan... crazy animals in Appleloosa... but nothing in... wait, I think that's a cotton candy cloud. Looks like he did do something in Ponyville after all since the last time I went through the feeds."

The sun princess now levitates a brief but to-the-point scroll she had previously written as a distress message to the Element Bearers, just to indicate to Luna and Cadance that it was ready, just as the image on the screen shows Rainbow Dash crashing into the just-discovered cotton candy cloud.

"Thou shouldst have sent that letter out 20 minutes ago, sister." Luna mutters, temporarily reverting to the "old language" as a more subtle way of expressing her grumpiness with the situation at hoof.

"Now now sister, this is all about timing..." Celestia replies as the three alicorns watch Rainbow Dash wrestle with the cotton candy cloud, which eventually starts raining chocolate milk over Ponyville. This, in turn, appears to trigger a cascade of other chaotic effects: corn popping right off the ears that Applejack was harvesting at the time and the apples of the apple trees suddenly growing to huge sizes, threatening the trees that they are still attached to.

"Well, I guess Ponyville's economy will get hurt just like it will everywhere else..." Cadance sighs out as the screen shows images of the local wildlife eating the oversized apples and mutating into long-legged "freaks", doubtless as Discord wanted to happen even though he himself had not yet shown a face in the area.

"Oh, and there's Twilight Sparkle, coming in to save the day as usual... 'spell that will fix everything'?" Luna comments as the purple unicorn that had previously been Celestia's #1 student appears on the screen, looking through an open book she was levitating in front of her.

"Ah, I see Twilight has still been working on learning that ever since I sent her to Ponyville. Looks like she finally got it down!" Celestia explains, her tone the happiest it has been in a while.

"But Auntie, would even that kind of spell work against the chaos he's causing?" Cadance naturally asks.

"We're about to find out. Twilight looks like she's about to try it..." Celestia answers as Twilight, with Spike the Dragon standing beside her, is seen on the screen prepping to use her fail-safe spell.

The three alicorns watch, riveted, as Twilight lets out the supposedly-restoring blast of blue and purple magic that, rather disappointingly, seems to do exactly nothing to fix the problems facing the now-assembled Element Bearers in Ponyville. As Twilight is seen staring in shock at how badly the spell failed, Celestia again levitates the rolled-up distress message, her thoughtful expression making it clear that she might've considered the timing just about right to send it.

"That's disappointing. Whatever is behind that magic is more powerful than that spell, no wonder Shining told me I would be no good here..." Cadance sadly comments.

"Sister, art thou going to send the message NOW?!" Luna sharply asks, unable to contain her irritation any longer.

"Yes Luna, I think they'll believe me at this point..." Celestia quietly answers, still transfixed on the floating screen in front of her as if waiting for a certain "cue" to send out the message - something that was lost on Cadance and Luna, who instead were focusing on the "Plan B" Twilight was laying out for dealing with the cotton candy clouds.

"I see Twilight's leadership skills have been developing nicely. She will make a fine mayor or war leader in due time." Luna comments as the alicorns continue to watch Twilight leading the effort rounding up the cotton candy clouds around Ponyville.

"Mayor? War leader? You should be thinking bigger with Twilight, sister." Celestia cryptically comments, which prompts Luna to look over at Cadance in confusion.

Cadance can only give a shrug in response - whatever Celestia had meant was completely lost on her. And indeed it would take a pair of wings and a number of years before Cadance would ever fully understand what that comment meant.

As Twilight is seen on the screen celebrating the corralling of the cotton candy clouds, Celestia gives a little nod and the levitating message disappears in a burst of green flame. A few seconds later, Spike is seen on screen spitting back out in green flame the same scroll Celestia had been levitating just seconds before.

Twilight on the screen takes the scroll with her magic, greatly surprised, and then opens it up to read it, the rest of the Element Bearers gathering closer around her as she does so. Finally, Twilight says the message Luna and Cadance consider too-long delayed in being sent: "Come on, girls. Princess Celestia wants to see us all in Canterlot immediately!"

"And now, we wait." Celestia quietly comments as the Element Bearers rush off the view on the screen.

"You mean we wait longer, sister." Luna continues her grumpy statements.

Cadance sighs and rolls her eyes, adding a comment of her own: "I hope Shining is having an easier time reorganizing the Guard than me trying to keep the Aunties from each other's throats..."

King Takes Rook

"But Daddy, how did you get here from that terrible place they locked you up?"

"I'll explain in a little bit, Glowworm. But for right now, it's just so good to see you again."

The filly Cozy Glow - or "Glowworm", as she had been nicknamed by her parents - embraced her father, or at least a pony that looked like her father. The older pony, who had once been known as Agent Deceit, had been held in Canterlot Supermax ever since being delivered to Canterlot. Cozy's tight, almost cylindrical curls of mane and tail were inherited from her father, who had them in a deep red color. This also made him fairly distinctive in a crowd, which helped explain his haste after the prison escape to get to the house where his mate and filly were living.

"Where's your mom?" the father asks when Cozy finally pulls out of her embrace.

"Mom is taking a nap right now. Did you escape with the help of that 'chaotic one' you kept talking about?" Cozy Glow replies, her eyes still moist from the happy tears from the unexpected reunion.

"Yes, but I don't have time to explain more right now. Go grab your emergency bag in your room while I talk to your mother."

"But why?"

"I can't stay in Canterlot too long, or somepony working for the princesses will put me back in that terrible place again. And you're going to have to come with me."

"What about Mommy?"

"Mommy will have to come along later, just get your bag and meet me at the front door."

"...Okay." Cozy Glow replies with a sigh that accompanies a droop in both her ears and mane.

As soon as Cozy Glow is out of earshot, the stallion moves deeper into the house, entering the room where he saw his mate, a pegasus mare with a pink coat and a shock of light blue hair, was currently sleeping. Carefully he pushes the door closed, then in a glow of green colored magic a Changeling drone seems to replace the stallion - the mate still sleeping unaware of what was going on.

The drone lets out a long, relieved sigh and gives a broad fanged smile, as if happy for the change to have occurred. The constant need for maintaining his cover was taxing on the drone, so temporarily letting down the cover was a joyous thing.

He couldn't stay this way for long though. Instead the drone shifts in a burst of green magic into a viper-like snake that quickly slithers across the floor and applies a bite on the sleeping mare's neck. The mother of Cozy Glow was in such a deep sleep that the bite and fatal injection of poison were never felt - she was long dead by the time a "parole officer" member of the E.U.P. Guard arrived at the house to check on her.

With Cozy Glow's mother now silenced, the Changeling drone now impersonating her father was free to mold her to whatever means he wanted, more-or-less ensuring her future villainous career. The worshipping of both Discord and Queen Chrysalis was about to be mixed in a dangerously corruptive cocktail...

The drone impostor quickly changes back into the disguise of Cozy Glow's father and exits the room, being careful to leave everything as he had found it. The only visible difference would've been the subtle dribble of blood from the bite punctures, and that would've taken a number of minutes to manifest anyways.

By that point, the disguised drone was waiting for Cozy Glow, who he could hear saying goodbye to what toys she had. As the filly of a pony that had been a fairly important member of the Agent of Chaos, she was used to saying goodbye in a hurry in order to elude loyalist attempts to arrest her family. Nevertheless, the reluctance in her hoofsteps was all too obvious to the drone as Cozy Glow came into view, a small bag slung on her back.

"Ready to go, Glowworm?" the disguised drone asks with an affectionate smile.

"Yes. You sure Mommy can't come with us right now?" Cozy Glow asks after a nodding response.

"I'm afraid so, honey."

"Alright... where are we going?"

"Cloudsdale. Your uncle has taken refuge there, away from the lackeys of the princesses. We will be safe there, and you will get to see the work of the 'chaotic one' while on the way."

"Really?" Cozy Glow asks as her face lights up with excitement.

"You betcha. But nothing's going to happen unless we make tracks outta here." the fake father replies.

And without another word, the stallion starts off, Cozy Glow trotting to catch up behind him. The abandonment of the house had sealed Cozy Glow's future fate, as there would be no further chance for friendship to work its magic before the corruptive influences around her completely sealed off her mind...

The pegasus filly and her disguised father moved slowly through the streets of Canterlot, aiming for a cloud transport up to the pegasi section of Canterlot, whereupon escape would be much easier than trying to finesse a way past a locked-down gate or over a watched wall. Along the way, the disguised drone would point out where the "strangely colored clouds" were raining various different fluids and in general making a mess of the city.

Any decent pony should've been concerned about the wide-eyed wonder on Cozy Glow's face as the drone was doing his job to get the filly more willing to accept Discord as her king instead of Celestia and Luna as the ruling princesses. Deceit was being built upon deceit, a stack of lies that would convince the filly that being a deceiver was the only way to future success, regardless of whoever she had to ally with to accomplish it...

Sadness and Deceit

Until the moment he found himself laying face up on the cobbles of a Canterlot back alley, bleeding out from a bite on his neck, the stallion that had been known as Agent Sadness had thought he was the luckiest stallion alive.

Months ago, during the Agents of Chaos attack known as "Operation Whirlwind", the stallion had been tasked with "seeding" Canterlot with dangerous magical artifacts. He took the task up with great trepidation, knowing it would practically guarantee him being cut off from the rest of the rebellion. Nevertheless, he succeeded in flitting from back alley to back alley, dropping artifacts as he went, then used the last one he held - the "Chameleon Collar" that kept him hidden from sight during the whole effort - to escape the city while the loyalists were doing their counterattack.

He had remained fugitive for several days, ditching the "Chameleon Collar" in the process, and made his way to Cloudsdale where he deliberately surrendered to the local garrison of E.U.P. Guard members. Since the members of the satellite branch didn't have any means to prove his story, they got Princess Celestia's approval to give him to a life sentence in Canterlot Supermax instead of applying the death penalty other Agents of Chaos had suffered. It was in this prison that he met a pegasus stallion that claimed he served a "Queen of the South" and could lead him to that queen if there ever was a chance of escape - an offer that the former Agent Sadness eagerly took him up on.

Discord's release and disruption of Canterlot Supermax provided that opportunity, and the two pegasi stallions escaped into Canterlot's back alleys. It was only there that Agent Sadness found his luck had run out, as before his eyes he saw his partner turn into a "bug-like" black pony and then lunge with fangs at his neck before the ex-Agent of Chaos could respond to the attack.

As the Agent lay on the cobbles, knowing that the situation was too disrupted to realistically hope for rescue as he bled out in the alley, he saw his partner give a mocking "laugh" that sounded more like a snake's hiss, then in a flash of green magic turn into an exact copy of his appearance. Another former Agent of Chaos was now replaced by a Changeling drone, and soon would join forces with another drone infiltrator...

The main objective of the drone once he had replaced the former Agent Sadness was to reach the cloud elevators that connected the main city of Canterlot with the pegasi "colony" built on permanent cloud banks above the city proper. Although in theory it was possible for a pegasus to fly between both areas without using the elevators, that method would've been a labor-intensive and awkward chore for any pegasus carrying a load or pulling a vehicle, so most pegasi opted to pay a toll for the relaxing ride up and down standing on a cloud instead. The toll, in turn, paid for the laborers to push the cloud up and down the semi-permanent cables strung between the cloud colony and a ground station as well as replace clouds if need be.

Discord's disruption had taken away some of the clouds normally used as part of the elevator, so as the disguised Agent Sadness approached the ground station he could see a line of irritated pegasi backing up as the operators scrambled to try to get the service restarted. The Agent took cover in an alley, looking up and down the line, and near its end spotted the also-disguised Agent Deceit, the filly Cozy Glow just behind him balancing a small bag on her back!

The disguised Agent Sadness gave a low whistle in the direction of the other disguised Agent, and as Agent Deceit looked over in response Agent Sadness sat on haunches and crossed his forelegs in an "X" shape over his chest. Deceit recognized this symbol - a quick way for disguised drones to identify themselves to other potential drones in disguise - and trotted over from his place in the line, Cozy Glow reluctantly following behind him. The pegasus behind Deceit and Cozy Glow in line gave an odd look to the duo as the place in front of them in line opened up, but otherwise did not pay attention to what was going on.

Agent Deceit and Cozy Glow followed Agent Sadness into retreating further into the alley, now completely out of sight of the line to use the cloud elevators. Cozy Glow was understandably icked out by her surroundings and confused by what was happening, but said nothing as the two disguised stallions engaged in conversation, Deceit speaking first:

"The line to the elevators is way too long, we'll get caught before getting to the head of the line. Got any ideas?"

"Can't we just speedfly directly?"

"Not with little Glowworm having to carry her bag. Besides, I'm pretty sure that there will be a lot of cloud-wrangling going on. We can't afford to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Hmm, we'll have to commandeer a cloud platform then. You know a way how?"

"Yeah, off-duty guard cover. Come on!"

"Wait! You're not gonna leave me here, are you?" Cozy Glow calls out with a sad face as both disguised stallions start further down into the alley without her.

"Of course not, Glowworm. We'll just be back in a minute." the disguised Agent Deceit calls back in answer, hoping that the filly wouldn't ask a bunch of questions about where the two stallions were able to obtain E.U.P. Guard armor in the span of a minute or so afterward.

"Are you gonna have to hurt ponies? Because that's gonna make everything harder..." Cozy Glow asks again.

"Other ponies will only get hurt if they act stupid. Just like you get hurt if you act stupid, so stay right where your hooves are now and we'll be right back." the disguised father answers again, with both he and the disguised Agent Sadness taking off before Cozy Glow could say anything else...

The Changeling drone disguised as Agent Deceit had half a mind at that very moment to abandon Cozy Glow completely, but changed his mind when he realized the filly would still be potentially useful in the future. He would continue to mold and warp her mind to suit his needs, or drain love from her as an emergency supply if nothing else.

It was thus that the Changeling infiltration would continue deeper into Equestria, following the "strategic elimination and replacement" policy pioneered by Agent X and endorsed by Queen Chrysalis as a means to set up her own attack on the kingdom. The release of Discord would leave much confusion, incorrect assumptions and mysterious puzzles that paved the way for the Changelings to attack themselves...

The Great Element Heist

"Hmph, I spread all this chaos all over their kingdom, and I still can't draw those alicorns out in battle! I must be missing something, and I need to figure out what that is exactly..."

The draconequus Discord had poofed himself back into the vicinity of Canterlot, which was still being disrupted by the unusual clouds and their rain, seemingly out of frustration that the alicorns Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had not yet engaged him. As Discord refused to believe that the alicorns would be willing to play the same illogical game he was the master of, he realized that now he would have to do some research to figure out why they were remaining hidden.

He decided the best place to look for clues was Canterlot's public library. After teleporting in with a magic "snap" to behind one of the pillars outlining the great circular hall in the center of the building, he immediately realized there were too many ponies still inside the library to avoid any reasonable chance of detection. Thus, for his next step he did another magic snap to remove a clock from a wall, repeating the time-stopping procedure he had done in Canterlot SuperMax before anypony had noticed it was gone and raise an alarm.

"Hmmm, they have a very nice collection here. I'll have to remember to come back when the frame-dragging effect of the time stoppage won't be such a big concern..." Discord comments as he begins floating and slithering his way between the time-frozen patrons of the library to look for the information he sought...

A FEW MINUTES LATER...

"Well, the 'Celestia' section was a bust. Maybe I'll find something in the 'Luna' section..." Discord was muttering in irritation, floating in front of the library shelves and balancing the removed clock on his lion paw "hand" while the eagle claw "hand" pulled out one book, then quickly returned it to the place it had been on the shelf. The muttering continued as he searched the new section of the library:

"Let's see... let's see... what's under that 'New Release' marker? Hmmm... 'The Legends of Nightmare Moon: Expanded and Revised Edition'? Now there's something worth checking out!"

He pulled the new addition to the library's collection off the shelf, then did another magic snap to place himself laying on top of a bookshelf in the quietest corner of the library. This would allow him to read with little risk of detection, and as such returned the clock he had been holding to its previous position with another magic snap. The previously stopped flow of time resumed, albeit with some disorientation induced by the effect in any pony in the library at the time.

Discord's muttering continued as he looked into the new book, unheard by the confused library patrons: "Legend of Nightmare Moon... heard that now and again while trapped as that statue... uh-huh, mm-hmm... ah-ha! So they won't be able to use them against me themselves, explains a lot... can anyone use it now... they're not even alicorns!... But, on the other hand, why take chances after what happened last time... gonna need to grab them myself... where did that alicorn put them, does this have it... ah-ha, Canterlot Tower!"

With all the knowledge he needed to act now, he disappears from the library with a poof, dropping the book off the top of the shelf as he does so. It wasn't until much later that the librarian Dicentra Liber found the misplaced book that there was any suspicion of what had happened, and any such suspicions quickly got lost in the confusion of that day...

AT CANTERLOT TOWER...

When Discord reappears, he is just inside the locked doors to the Canterlot Tower, bypassing the pair of guards that had been placed on Shining Armor's orders just outside the doors. Perhaps somewhat foolishly, Shining took Celestia at her word that the spell protecting the Elements of Harmony was unbreakable by anyone but herself and did not provide any more security than the pair at the door. This meant Discord could casually stroll - or float, or moonwalk, or even walk on his "hands", anything that tickled his fancy really - through the room, taking in the stained glass around him as he does so.

"Oooh, this is all very intriguing, even if I don't like what it's depicting about me..." Discord exclaims, looking up at the stained glass as he walks on his "hands".

He pushes off and flips back upright, transitioning into moonwalking as he does so: "At least now I know that story about 'Nightmare Moon' isn't a bunch of hot air. I'll have to come back here when 'the replacements' show up, that stained glass will make an excellent way to show off..."

Discord stops in front of the door locked by Celestia's spell, spinning around to face the door from his previous orientation. Rather than just stick something into the hole in the middle to see what would happen, Discord instead looks inside the hole, muttering comments to himself as he does so: "Rifling, the groove spacing and width is too big for an average unicorn... and those alicorns think they have top-notch security. Really, all I need is an accurate enough imitation of the horn..."

Discord backs up slightly and gives a maniacal chuckle as with a flash the end of his right arm changes into an imitation of Princess Celestia's horn. He inserts the horn into the hole, and with a twist the spell is temporarily suppressed to allow the door to open. Discord changes the right arm back to its usual shape, then gently pushes the door open.

"Well, I don't see any fancy magic necklaces in here, but maybe that elaborate box is where she's stowed them away..." Discord comments as he extends his long, slender shape into the "closet" where Celestia had stowed the Elements of Harmony.

He carefully reaches toward the elaborately-jeweled box, wary of the possibility of another trap being set for him, and carefully lifts open the latch, pausing just a moment to see if any alarms or other spells have been triggered. He is relieved, and a little surprised, when neither of these things occur.

"What a joke of security... I'll just take these and lock everything back up..." Discord says with a evil grin as he swipes the Elements of Harmony out of the box. "Really have half a mind to just crush these things to dust, but I'd have more fun watching the shock and horror on those pony faces when they realize what's missing... I'll just hide these somewhere instead, don't know where yet, but I'll think of something..."

Author's Note

(Note that "Dicentra Liber" is supposed to be the same pony as the dark teal unicorn mare with a yellow sweater Twilight talks to at the start of "The Point of No Return". The MLP Wiki doesn't seem to have an "official" name for her - only referred to as "Librarian Pony" in episode transcript and gallery - so I decided to give her one. The "Liber" is Latin for "book", and the cutie mark seems to show flowers of the "Dicentra" genus.)

Oh, Bats!

"But Lieutenant, you should know what kind of reaction we'll get if we go out there in the middle of the day!"

"The orders from our Princess are clear, Arcturus. We are to head out and assist our daytime brethren fighting against this monster causing chaos, regardless of what our fellow Equestrians may think!"

Daytime trips out of the enormous caves that served as the Canterlot district of the batponies, especially by groups, were a rare enough occurance that it inevitably generated unhelpful agitation among the daytime population of Equestria. Lieutenant Vesper, head of the batpony component of the E.U.P. Guard, was therefore quite understanding of his subordinates being reluctant to follow the orders issued from Princess Luna.

In the months since Princess Luna's return and restoration to her previous authority, Vesper and his fellow batponies had found themselves in an uphill battle against mounds of skepticism and suspicion among the general Equestrian population. Considering the batponies generally sticking to their caves and rarely ever going out during the daytime (due to the sensitivity of their eyes to sunlight), it was hard to blame the average Equestrian for believing whatever rumors (sometimes veering into outright slander) the ambitious and devious told about them.

There was also the historical fact which was only reluctantly acknowledged in modern times: the devotion to "Nightmare Moon", which existed in a much less sanitized form than the "Nightmare Night" known among the general population and had tended to include all the bad behaviors induced by drunkenness. The official line of all this being the batponies merely holding a misplaced loyalty to Luna was, unsurprisingly, regarded with large amounts of disbelief and doubt. With persistent usages of the term "cult" and "disloyal" thrown at batponies over this, the Thestrals found themselves uncomfortably stuck between a rock and a hard place in the "court" of public opinion despite the best efforts of the Princesses and Shining Armor to remedy this.

In hindsight, it shouldn't have surprised anypony that the batpony population would become high-priority targets of the Changeling infiltration. Not only would it be easy for the drones to agitate the general Equestrian population into not trusting them, the access to the interior of the mountain the batponies provided a ready-made way to hide ponies or objects the drones wanted to "replace" or "make disappear". And just like in so many other aspects of their infiltration, the confusion surrounding Discord's release would kick their plan into a higher gear...

AT THE MOUTH OF THE BATPONY CAVE...

"Halt, feathered one!" the batpony guard in the sentry box exclaims as the pegasus guard descends down into the gaping cave opening. During the day, a few batponies that would be off their usual sleep schedules were posted into sentry boxes just outside the line of sunshine to monitor what little traffic went in and out of the cave during those hours.

"Do you bring orders from the castle?" the batpony continues as the pegasus lands in front of the box, just inside the darkness of the cave mouth.

"Yes, I do." the pegasus guard answers, using his wing to pull out a scroll and drop it in front of the batpony.

The batpony worked the scroll open carefully with hooves... and was very puzzled by what he was reading. Although he confirmed that Luna's royal seal was in the lower right corner, the actual content of the scroll seemed to be nothing but scrawled strokes and whirls of ink. He turned the scroll in a few different orientations, trying to see if the text was written in an unusual format - something Luna was known to do from time to time.

While puzzling over the scroll, the batpony was critically distracted from his duties, and by the time he noticed anything was wrong he already had something wrapped around his body! He was yanked out of the sentry box, falling sideways to the stone floor of the cavern, and came face-to-face with the hooded hiss of a cobra for just a moment before the venomous strike ended his career forever.

To an outside observer, it would've looked like two very large snakes had attacked the sentry post, one looking like a cobra and one looking like an anaconda. Once the batpony had fallen, though, there were no other observers, and the two Changeling drones that had coordinated the attack dropped their disguises in a flash of green magic, leaving themselves exposed but only visible as shadowy outlines from anyone looking into the cave.

"Dump him into the wasssssssste disssssposal shaft and then finisssssh delivering the fake orders. Onccccccccce you get back, you'll take over permanently." one of the drones says to his counterpart while assuming the form of the batpony that had been stationed in the sentry box.

"Undersssstood." the other drone replies briefly, beginning to drag the real batpony off to be disposed of along with the garbage of the batponies...

A FEW MINUTES LATER...

"So you're saying that these orders came directly from Princess Luna herself?" Lieutenant Vesper asks the batpony skeptically, after being presented with the same scrawled ink scroll that had fatally distracted the guard before.

"That's correct, sir." the drone disguised as the guard replies, hoping that there wasn't a failure of his voice imitation that would give away the game.

"Sir, with all due respect this doesn't even seem legible. Sure the seal is on there, but that doesn't mean anything if we can't figure out what it says." Arcturus points out as he looks over from beside Vesper as the latter tries several different rotations of the scroll to see if anything useful to its readability happened.

Finally Lieutenant Vesper lets out a low, growling sigh as he lets the scroll roll back up, also shaking his head in the process. This is followed up by a quick order to the disguised drone: "The combination of unusual hour and lack of caffeine must've rendered her writing illegible without her realizing it. I'm afraid, soldier, you'll have to go back to the castle and ask Her Highness to retry writing down whatever orders she intended to give."

"Understood, sir. Not a problem, sir." the disguised drone replies with a salute, hastily gathering up the scroll again and turning to leave the small chamber the Thestrals were assembled in pending further orders.

Further orders, of course, would never come. The Changeling deception would ensure the Thestrals would never set hoof outside their caverns despite Luna's intent for them to do so, aggravating the bad feelings both within the batpony service and between the service and the rest of the E.U.P. Guard. This aggravation was all part of Changeling plan to divide and conquer, orchestrated by Queen Chrysalis and facilitated by the draconequus Discord...

With A Chance of Quesadillas

"OK, we're safely through the tunnel, now we'll have to get over the chasm bridges... Pinkie Pie, shut that window, you're not going to convince those clouds to come any closer!"

"Can you blame a pony for trying?"

Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes as Pinkie shut the train window as the express train travelling the Canterlot-Ponyville route began crossing the first of a series of bridges that twisted and turned their way up the side of the mountain Canterlot was built on. The Element Bearers were alone on the train, which was only doing the run after Twilight showed the operator the message from Celestia.

"I still don't know why ya couldn't just teleport us all over there, Twilight. Would be faster, right?" Applejack asks as she stands in the carriage aisle beside Twilight and Pinkie.

"Five other ponies over that distance? No, it's way too risky. Besides, it's hard to get Pinkie to stay still long enough for me to get a good lock on her location." Twilight replies with a shake of her head, the last comment producing an irritated "hmph" from Pinkie Pie beside her.

"Looks like there's a lot more of those strange clouds where the one we brought down came from..." Rarity comments from the opposite side of the aisle from where the other three mares were positioned, looking out her window as she speaks.

"Yeah, you got all kinds of stuff coming down in those chasms, not just chocolate milk..." Rainbow Dash adds from the seat behind Rarity, also looking out a window.

"I wonder where all those clouds are coming from anyway... maybe we can figure out what's generating them and adjust it to have it rain whatever we want!" Pinkie Pie exclaims enthusiastically.

"I dunno Pinkie, I think ponies could get carried away if we tried to do that..." Twilight cautions.

"Besides, if you're thinkin' I'm gonna stand here and let you TRY to make a cloud that rains apples or applesauce or anythin' with apples in it, THINK AGAIN!" Applejack snips out, it now being her turn to be irritated.

"Hey, one of those strange clouds is coming our way. And it's raining something... yellowish..." Rarity comments, biting her lower lip as she does so.

"I hope that's not a waste disposal cloud. It's not very nice for it to be doing whatever it looks like its going to do..." Fluttershy finally squeaks up from a position several rows back from the other Element Bearers.

"There's very strict rules about where the waste disposal clouds can and cannot dump their loads." Twilight Sparkle adds. "It was one of the required conditions Princess Celestia set before she would allow any pegasi to live in Canterlot. But with the clouds acting crazy for whatever reason..."

By this point, Pinkie had carefully opened her window again, and a few seconds later the yellowish liquid began pitter-pattering on the train, the cloud roughly following the train as it continued crossing the trusses on its way to Canterlot. Pinkie cautiously stuck her snout out into the falling liquid and took a few sniffs.

"Doesn't smell like something that would come out of that cloud..." Pinkie comments, licking the liquid off her snout after finishing. "In fact, it tastes like... cider! Apple cider!"

"Cider!" Rainbow Dash eagerly exclaims, flinging open her own window and trying to catch the liquid drops in her mouth in much the same manner Pinkie had initially acted before the cider-raining cloud had moved over the train.

"Rainbow Dash, get back in here! Seriously, acting like Pinkie Pie isn't going to help anypony..." Rarity exclaims, working her way back to Rainbow Dash's seat and yanking her back completely inside the train. This produced a pouting attitude on Dash's part as Rarity shuts her window, Twilight doing the same for Pinkie's window.

"I wonder if those clouds can rain something more solid..." Fluttershy squeaks up again.

"I think they might, I saw solid things fall out of some of the clouds over in the chasms..." Rainbow Dash answers, still in her irritated crossed-forehooves pose.

Shortly after Rainbow Dash finished her sentence, there was a pronounced change in the noise from the falling objects outside. Instead of the "pitter-patter" of a falling liquid, a variety of different sounds took their place. Some were "thunks" or "donks", others were a "splat" or a "plop" noise, and often the two different types of sounds followed each other in sequence.

"Now what's going on?" Rarity naturally asks, with she and most of the other Element Bearers now poised as if trying to listen carefully to the sounds from outside of the train.

"I don't know but I think the raining items have..." Twilight begins to respond, but never getting to finish due to being interrupted by the screeching of the train's brakes suddenly being employed. Instantly, most of the Element Bearers tumble to the floor, Fluttershy going head-over-hooves due to her positioning.

The screeching brakes drowned out all other sounds for several seconds as the train ground its way to a halt, stopping in the middle of one of the chasm bridges. A few seconds after the train stopped, an earth pony stallion acting as the train's engineer opens the door leading into the train carriage the Element Bearers were currently in and hustles down the aisle toward where they were sprawled on the floor or upside down between the seats.

"What's going on?! Why'd we stop like that?" Rainbow Dash asks in a dazed, irritated tone of voice as the engineer helps the group of mares back up on their hooves.

"The driver's judged it too dangerous to continue on. When it was just liquid raining, we thought things would be alright, but when it changed to quesadillas..." the train engineer begins to explain.

"Quesa-whats now?" Applejack interrupts, not familiar with the food item just described.

"Quesadillas, Applejack. They're actually super-delicious, if not super-cheesy at the same time. I should make some for you some time..." Pinkie Pie helpfully answers.

"And all that cheese is going to gum up the train wheels and cause a derailment. Too dangerous to continue on until it blows over." Twilight Sparkle adds on, looking up warily as another "splat" is heard on the train carriage roof.

"But dahling, we can't just keep Princess Celestia waiting when she urgently needs our help! There must be something that can be done to get the cloud to go away!" Rarity exclaims.

Twilight Sparkle looks thoughtful for a minute, then starts over toward a window, pushing it open and cautiously peeking out through the opening. All around the young mare can see quesadillas falling from the cloud above, some rebounding away (the "thunk" or "donk" noises) on hitting a solid surface, others splitting open or falling apart upon impact (the "splat" or "plop" noises) with their cheesy innards oozing out. This was happening not just on the roof of the train, but on the track itself and the supports of the bridge. The force of the impacts wouldn't be enough to do structural damage, but the resulting mess would definitely cause problems for any train trying to pass over it. The cloud needed to be dissipated, and fast!

"Twilight, what are you doing?" Rainbow Dash asks, as the other Element Bearers crowd the still-closed windows next to Twilight's open one.

"I have an idea." Twilight answers, magenta-colored magic forming on her horn. She squints her eyes as the magical energy grows steadily in brightness, quickly forming a sphere centered on her horn.

As both the other Element Bearers and the train engineer watch, the sphere of magic energy blasts skyward, leaving a trail of sparks like a firework would behind it, before disappearing into the cloud. A low rumbling is heard, and a pinkish flash of light is seen from inside the cloud.

"Hmm, that should've be enough to blow apart the cloud from..." Twilight comments with a disappointed tone before being interrupted by a yipe coming from Fluttershy, who is currently two rows behind her.

"Um, Twilight, was that supposed to create a black, swirling vortex of DOOM?!" Fluttershy forces out, and the other ponies watch as indeed the cloud seems to start collapsing into a black, swirling mass, the quesadillas still falling down around the stopped train.

As soon as the mass encompasses the whole cloud, the quesadillas finally stop falling, but now the black mass twists and distorts in various directions. Shortly afterwards, the cloud seems to burst in several places and a buzzing like insect wings begins to fill the air as swarms of indistinguishable objects fly out through the burst open areas.

"Oh, this can't be good!" Applejack exclaims as the group watches in petrified fear...

Battle On The Canterlot Express

A loud buzzing continued to fill the air around the stopped train, the black cloud above spewing forth flying things that begin assembling into aerial formations. The ponies on the train can see nothing about what's going on until the formations start divebombing the train...

"Quesadilla bugs?!?" Rainbow Dash exclaims as the first wave of attackers come into clear view, the bug-winged food shortly thereafter beginning to spit out what appeared to be balls of semi-solid cheese.

"This is worse than Twilight turning a frog into an orange!" Applejack exclaims, the cheese balls impacting the train with "sploot" noises and covering the train in cheesy gunk.

"Should we try to start the train again?" the train engineer asks Twilight Sparkle as the first bombing wave pulls away and a second one gets into position.

"Yes, but go at only the slowest traveling speed you can manage." Twilight answers as she tries to blast away at the approaching divebombers.

A few seconds later, the engineer disappears in the direction of the train's engine, and Twilight pulls her head back into the train after firing a few test shots at the diving swarms. The "sploots" of the second bombing raid impact the train as Twilight tries to figure out who could help her fight them off.

"Rainbow Dash, go out there and try to keep them distracted. Don't land on the carriage top if you can help it, that cheese is going to make it slippery up there." Twilight orders out before sticking her head out the window again and focusing on the flying attackers.

"Oh, oh, can I go too Twilight?!" Pinkie Pie eagerly asks, but is immediately whacked on the head by the folded-up umbrella Rarity had brought with her from Ponyville.

"No, all you're going to do is try to lick up all that cheese out there and slide yourself right off that train roof!" Rarity interrupts, her irritated expression and the blue-colored magic around the floating umbrella making it clear who was behind the parasol whacking.

"Darn, if I'd only remembered to bring my party cannon with me..." Pinkie mutters with a sulking attitude as the train whistle is heard and the machinery is put back into gear to get the train moving again...

Rainbow Dash zooms out the open back of the train and leaps into taking flight, looping back around toward the passenger carriage as she analyzes the situation around her. Below is a sheer drop toward rocky ground. To one side is the train lurching into slow movement again, Twilight shooting up bursts of magical energy toward a third wave of cheesy divebombers that fling down their loads despite the energy bolts "toasting" a few of the attackers, sending them plummeting down in smoking, crispy ruin.

"Ugh, I'm probably gonna need a bath when all this is said and done..." Rainbow Dash notes to herself as she zooms to catch the attention of one of the divebombing waves, easily outpacing the train now slowly moving across the truss bridge. Sure enough, she manages to catch the attention of the next wave of flying quesadillas that were setting up to divebomb the train, them switching targets to attacking her instead. She leads them toward the other side of the train, well knowing that the black cloud still above could harbor even more nasty surprises.

Meanwhile, back in the train itself Applejack announces she'll go up front and help the train operators in case they get attacked directly, leaving the other three Element Bearers with Twilight in the passenger carriage. Rarity, unable to do much to help the others in this situation, retreats to a corner of the carriage, dragging Pinkie Pie along with her; only once in the corner does she realize that Fluttershy is still sitting by a window, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.

"Fluttershy, get away from that window! We don't know what those things are capable of!" the Generosity Bearer calls out when she spots where Fluttershy is.

"But maybe if I can just talk to one of them, convince them it was all a big misunderstanding..." Fluttershy quietly replies in her naive manner, pushing her window open against the dripping cheese as she does so.

It doesn't take long before one of the flying attackers - literally a floating quesadilla with fluttering bug wings and bug eyes that makes high-pitched growling sounds - drops down and hovers facing Fluttershy.

"Aww, hello little guy, maybe I can go talk to your friends and them it was all just..." Fluttershy starts before the floating food item spits cheese directly in her face before flying away to join the others in the next attack!

"MEANIE!" Fluttershy shouts as Rarity uses magic to yank her back into the train carriage, the window slamming down shut again.

"Pinkie, help me get this stuff off her face! It'll choke her if we don't!" Rarity shouts as she rushes up to Fluttershy, who is groping around with forehooves for something to clean her face off.

"Okie-dokie lokie!" Pinkie eagerly replies, bouncing up beside Rarity and beginning to lick the cheese off Fluttershy's face in the same manner a dog would.

Rarity, unsurprisingly, backs away in horror, bringing hoof to face as another round of gooey cheese bombs land on top of the train. And although Fluttershy's face is quickly cleaned off, the final result of her expression is the mortified confusion expected over the "tongue bath" she had just received.

"What? You said help get the cheese off her face, so I did." Pinkie defensively explains after finishing when she sees Rarity's extremely unamused look.

"Pinkamena Diane Pie, will you please start taking this situation more seriously?! These cheese-spewing things won't seem so funny if they derail our train!" Rarity exclaims in exasperation as the battle continues outside...

Ain't Easy Bein' Cheesy

"Ha! Take that... and that... and THAT! This is actually kinda... AH! Get off get off get off! Who turned off the sun?!"

"Twilight, Rainbow Dash is in trouble!"

The battle between the Element Bearers and the squadrons of "quesadilla bugs", for lack of a better term, was still raging as the train inched its way down the elevated tracks toward Canterlot, some sections precariously both greased and gummed up by the melty cheese spewed by the attackers. On one side of the train, an attack squadron continued to divebomb the train despite many of its members falling to their well-toasted deaths by magic blasts of Twilight Sparkle. On the other side, a second squadron had been engaged by Rainbow Dash flying among them and using aerial moves to knock them out of the sky, at least until one of the bugs slathered their cheesy grip over Rainbow Dash's face.

Fluttershy, watching Rainbow Dash through one of the cheese-streaked train windows, saw Rainbow Dash in distress and called Twilight for help from across the train seats. The yellow pegasus scrambled out of the way as the purple unicorn raced across to beside her looking through the window, observing Rainbow Dash trying to pull a quesadilla bug off her face as others circle around to attack. The window goes up with blinding speed and Twilight launches a few time-delayed magic "bombs", aimed on each side of Rainbow Dash.

The delayed blasts scatter the attackers around Rainbow Dash, frying a few of them in the process, as the somersaulting Rainbow Dash finally manages to get a hoof between her face and the attacker's clamping grip, prying the attacker off and sending it downward with a hard downward strike. Her face, as well as one of her forehooves, was covered in cheesy gunge, but otherwise the rainbow-maned pegasus was fine.

"Thanks Twilight, I owe you one!" Rainbow Dash calls down to Twilight in the train, before going back to smashing the attackers around her...

"Ah! Get back, get back, get back!" Rarity shouts from behind Twilight and Fluttershy. The two Element Bearers turn to see attacking bugs sneaking in through the window Twilight had left open from the other side of the train, Rarity swatting at them with her closed umbrella to try to drive them back out the window.

Twilight springs to beside Rarity, swatting at the attackers now inside the train carriage with her own hooves instead of risking damaging the train from the inside with her own magic blasts. Fluttershy scrambles to join Pinkie and Applejack in the far corner of the train carriage, trying to stay as far away from the cheesy opponents as possible. Meanwhile, Rarity and Twilight work together to drive out or knock down the bugs that had made it inside, throwing the KOed bugs back out the unguarded open window before slamming it shut again.

The Element Bearers still in the train were trying to figure out what to do next when they hear pounding coming from the door leading to the train engine, followed by loud calls for help from the train conductor. The immediate conclusion is that the quesadilla bugs are starting to attack the front of the train, and Applejack starts racing down the length of the passenger carriage to go to their aid.

"Rarity, go with her, make sure she doesn't get herself in trouble!" Twilight orders Rarity after Applejack blows past both of them, which Rarity only reluctantly follows after Applejack bursts her way through the door leading toward the train engine...

When Rarity catches up with Applejack at the train engine, she sees both the train engineer and conductor being harassed by the flying attackers, which were hovering in through the windows and spewing cheese all throughout the engine cabin despite the engineer trying to use a blackened coal shovel to try to swat them away.

"We gotta do somethin' to help 'em out!" Applejack shouts, leaping into the fray - and onto the melty cheese covered floor.

"Applejack, not only is this cabin getting very crowded, but I am not stepping hoof into all that cheese on the floor!" Rarity objects, deciding to use the umbrella she had brought with her as a floating weapon while staying in the relative safety just outside the door.

The reinforcements up front tipped the initiative of the attack, quesadilla bugs falling either from the physical attacks or the floating umbrella skewering them straight through. The bugs kept coming, but as the number of injured and dead continued to increase they eventually pulled back, retreating back toward the dark cloud that had spawned them.

The floor and walls of the train engine was left a sticky mess, gooey cheese covering the floor and dripping down the walls. In the cheese layer were several dead or critically injured quesadilla bugs, which the train operators began to gingerly pick out of the layer and toss out the side windows. Applejack, meanwhile, was only able to make her way back toward the exit of the engine with great difficulty; Rarity ended up having to yank her the last few steps back into the carriage behind it.

"Rarity, remind me never to do that again." Applejack tells the white unicorn, looking down at her cheese covered hooves with a disguised look.

"Oh, I don't think I'll need a reminder, dahling." Rarity comments, wearing the same disgusted look on observing her "gunged" and damaged umbrella, which she reluctantly hovers beside her and tosses out a window she opens briefly before closing again to prevent new infiltration.

By the time Applejack and Rarity make it back to their fellow Element Bearers, they have noticed through the windows that the attacking bugs are in general retreat back toward the dark cloud they had spawned from, which was tracking beside the slow-moving train. About half a minute later, they also see Rainbow Dash returning back toward the carriage and Twilight stop launching her magic missile counterattack.

"Did we win? Are they going to stop spewing cheese at us?" Applejack asks Twilight as soon as she and Rarity make it back to the passenger carriage.

"I don't know, all the bugs are going back toward that cloud..." Twilight comments.

"Eek! Look where it's moving!" Fluttershy squeaks out from beside Twilight, which prompts the entire crew to look out the windows.

And indeed the cloud was indeed moving, heading in the direction of the train as the last of the buggy attackers disappear back into it! The general direction is toward the front of the train, and the group hears the train's brakes squealing into life as the train is stopped again, still perched over a drop into the craggy valley below. Windows are opened again, the ponies temporarily ignoring the cheese still dripping down the sides of the train.

All six heads poke out of various different windows as the group of mares try to get a good view of what's happening down the track, where the black cloud is now hovering over. The cloud slowly descends over the track, stopping directly in front of the train.

"What's it doing?" Rainbow Dash asks as the cloud begins twisting and contorting again, assuming a more flattened shape.

"I'm afraid we're going to find out whether we want to or not!" Twilight calls back.

The flattened shape of the cloud suddenly appears to grow six bug-like "legs", then "perch" upon the track ahead of the stopped train. The cloud began changing into a lighter color, which prompted the following comment from Rainbow Dash: "Uh-oh, if it's turning into what I think it is..."

"No, not again!" Fluttershy exclaims, pulling her head back into the train and slamming her window shut.

The worry and confusion is quickly replaced by horror as the cloud manifests as a giant version of the "quesadilla bugs" the Element Bearers had been battling, roughly matching the train's engine in size! The giant bug lets out a loud roar, exposing cheesy insides, then blasts out a huge spread of cheese, the watching ponies only pulling in just in time as the entire train is covered now in the sticky yellow mess.

"Great, now what do we do?" Applejack shouts, her attitude temporarily shared by the rest of the Element Bearers at the new turn of events...

Xanthocaseophobia

"Um, maybe if we leave it alone it'll just go away on its own?"

"Are you out of your mind, Fluttershy?! That thing is obviously out for our blood, and Princess Celestia needs us in Canterlot, not stuck here in a train!"

"Girls, girls, arguing isn't going to solve this problem!" Twilight interrupts, stopping the spat that had developed between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. "What we need is a well-thought and coordinated attack plan."

"So, has your big brain come up with one? Preferably one that won't backfire on us like last time?" Rainbow Dash sarcastically asks.

"As a matter of fact, I have. But I'll need the help of you, Fluttershy and Applejack." Twilight answers, gesturing Applejack to come over from the corner of the train carriage she was currently sitting in. A slightly confused Applejack does so, and once she does the four Element Bearers go into a huddle.

Twilight talks to the other three for a minute, and each them nod in turn in agreement to whatever her plan was. She then turns to Rarity and Pinkie - the other two left out of the discussion - and explains a little bit about what was going on: "I have a plan for dealing with that thing. One of you go tell the train operators what's going on in case something happens to us. We're heading out."

Rarity and Pinkie exchange looks somewhere between surprise and outright shock, but do not verbally object to Twilight's statement. Instead, Rarity is the one that volunteers to inform the train operators what is going on.

"Then let's roll." Twilight confidently exclaims, leading Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Applejack toward the front of the train carriage...

Unable to see much out of the cheese-covered windows of the train, Rarity and Pinkie Pie join the train engineer and conductor watching Twilight Sparkle's plan unfold by leaning out the front of the leading carriage just behind the engine. The giant quesadilla bug blocking the track forward had seemed to be content simply looking fierce in its cheesy way and just sitting put, so nopony had any idea what would happen next as Twilight began deploying according to the plan she had come up with.

Twilight and Applejack were airlifted into place (by Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy respectively) and began cautiously walking forward along the slicked rails, the pegasi hovering alongside in case either pony lost their balance. Inch by agonizing inch the ponies approached closer, the knots forming in stomachs and growing tighter with each step closer to the looming quesadilla bug. The enemy meanwhile gets more agitated, growling and hissing at the approaching ponies and finally letting out a roar when the ponies had gotten close enough.

"I can't look!" Pinkie Pie exclaims after the roar, pulling Rarity's forehooves in front of her eyes and nearly throwing the off-white unicorn off-balance, much to the irritation of said unicorn.

The four mares are now within feet of the grotesque magic-created creature. Twilight gives a small nod in Rainbow Dash's direction, which prompts the light-blue pegasus to charge directly at their enemy. Rainbow rebounds off the creature, which roars in irritation from the hit; this gives Twilight an opening to fire a blast into the open mouth of the creature, lighting it on fire as a result!

Rainbow Dash recovers as the odor of burning cheese fills the air - the burning creature staggers forward in an attempt to counterattack, prompting Applejack to launch into the air and smash into the giant burning bug in attempt to knock it off balance. Fluttershy catches Applejack in the rebound, but neither she nor Rainbow Dash can do anything to stop the staggering mass from tilting toward Twilight Sparkle!

Everypony watching gasps in horror as the dying giant bug collapses on top of her, sliding off the raised track as it does so! Rainbow Dash sees the inertia of the falling mass drag Twilight off the track, setting her into plunging into the gorge below, and races after the burning corpse, trying to pull the heavily-gunged Twilight out of the burning, falling mass.

Fluttershy brings Applejack back to the other Element Bearers on the train, but they are so riveted toward watching Twilight's fall they don't notice the return. The falling mass explodes into smoking fireballs far below, with no apparent sign of Twilight or Rainbow Dash down there.

For about 20 seconds, there is silence, the burnt cheese odor now steaming up from far below amplifying the unpleasant knots in stomachs and fear of the worst. It is not until signs of movement near the base of the bridge that hope returns, followed by the sight of a bright blue object struggling to gain upward momentum beside the bridge supports.

"Fluttershy, go down there and see if Rainbow needs help with the airlift!" Applejack exclaims to the yellow pegasus, the stern expression on her face making it perfectly clear she was not to be argued with. Fluttershy, despite the obvious reluctance on her face, does silently take off and slowly drop down a few seconds later.

Fluttershy's yellow form is seen edging sideways toward the light blue shape, and then the two start moving in the same direction - up toward the train - faster than before. When the forms of the two pegasi, along with a coughing Twilight being carried between them, come into clear view, everypony watching lets out a cheer of relief and joy that the menace to the train had finally been defeated for good!

The Element Bearers back up slightly as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy work together to lay Twilight on her back, the purple unicorn now covered with sticky cheese and still coughing up clods of it. It was very obvious that Twilight had become trapped in the burning mass and probably would've choked to death on the cheese around her had not Rainbow Dash pulled her out of it.

"Rarity, get the train engineer to start her up again. Slowly." Applejack tells the white unicorn, and the unicorn nods in response, stepping aside to talk to the train engineer as the rest of the crowd gathers around the heavily-breathing Twilight.

"All... that... sticky cheese... I... might... be... scarred... for... life..." Twilight pants out between heavy breaths.

"Well, we're just glad you're still breathin', Twilight sugar." Applejack reassures with a smile. "We'll get you cleaned up and the train movin' again so that we can finally deal with this here problem Princess Celestia wants us to deal with."

"Oh... yeah... the problem... almost forgot about that..." Twilight continues panting out, cheese dripping off of her and adrenaline still coursing through her veins. It would be little surprise in the future that even the sight of quesadillas would provoke a fearful response out of Celestia's former student, even after becoming an alicorn and a teacher of friendship in her own right...

Author's Note

(For the curious, the title means "fear of yellow cheese". Xantho = Greek for "yellow", caseo = variant of caseus which is Latin for "cheese", and "phobia" = Greek for "fear". And also now you know how Twilight got a fear of quesadillas. :raritywink: )

Walk A Lonely Road

"I'm afraid I don't know any more than you do about the delay of the express coming from Ponyville, sir. The station staff weren't exactly being helpful..."

"You still have your squad there, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then go back and wait with them. The Element Bearers might have run into trouble, and it will be your responsibility if the escort is not executed properly. Hopefully the train is just delayed by the chaos that's been generated in recent hours, but you should be prepared for anything. Dismissed!"

"Yes, sir. I will, sir."

The words of the briefing echo in Lieutenant Steelwing's mind as he canters down the cobbles of Canterlot's streets, heading back toward the train station from delivering his report in Canterlot's castle. At this time of day, the streets would normally be bustling with ponies going about their business, but the lockdown ordered after Discord's release had emptied the streets, the Guard Lieutenant passing only a pony here and there.

The grey-coated Lieutenant couldn't help but notice that most of the stares aimed in his direction were irritated, if not outright hostile. What was particularly alarming was the number of peeking eyes from behind windows. Steelwing wondered if it was because he was a pegasus, when public opinion about them was at a low point because of the increasingly well-documented abuses of power by other pegasi in the Guard service. Of course, there was the alternative explanation of ponies suddenly being forced from their usual routines with only rudimentary justifications due to Discord's release, but Steelwing feared the racial component would come to the surface anyways.

Upon turning toward the train station, he is mortified to find the train has not arrived yet. And what's worse, the few civilian ponies waiting at the station were giving hostile stares toward his squad members, most of which were also pegasi stallions. They seemed to consider the guards as the reason for the train being late, and the Lieutenant knew that once that attitude was established it would be very difficult to uproot it.

"Report." Lieutenant Steelwing snaps to the seniormost member of his squad as soon as arriving in the station.

"We have gotten a message into the station that the train has been delayed due to an effect from the unusual clouds. They should be along any minute, sir." the squad member answers, saluting as he does so.

"I hope so. Princess Celestia has been kept waiting long enough, and I see she's not the only one getting restless in this city..." Steelwing continues, warily looking over at the civilians with their dark stares. A "fracture surface" was opening up in Equestrian society, one that soon would be ruthlessly exploited by the Changeling invaders to come...

MEANWHILE, IN CANTERLOT'S PEGASI DISTRICT...

"Did we really have no other choice but to knock her out?" a disguised Changeling drone wearing E.U.P. Guard armor says to his counterpart as they hustle through the cloud-paved streets of colony above Canterlot.

"I didn't have a reasonable alternative! Besides, it won't do any permanent harm; we'll just drop her off at the hospital up here and make arrangements to have her transported to Cloudsdale as soon as everything else settles down. Getting up here as quickly as possible was the most important thing!" the counterpart drone, normally disguised as "Agent Deceit" but now temporarily wearing another pony face, answers. The temporarily unconscious Cozy Glow was sprawled on his back, the drones having made sure she would never be aware of the deception beyond the need to escape Canterlot as quickly as possible.

"So then what do we do once we get her to the hospital?" the first drone speaks again, having temporarily replaced his usual "Agent Sadness" disguise while under the armor so as to throw off any investigative attempts to locate the stolen armor.

"Fly straight to Cloudsdale. Stay high, only stopping on clouds to rest." his partner answers. "Once we get to Cloudsdale, we can find the brother of 'Agent Sadness' and you can 'replace' him. That way we can lay low until we get an opportunity to infiltrate Canterlot again. Besides, I'm sure the Queen will be very interested in the information we have picked up, and it will be much easier to deliver that information out of Cloudsdale than out of Canterlot."

"I suppose you're right. But I don't know how we're going to keep the filly out of the loop for..."

"We don't need to keep her out of the loop. We just need to keep her obedient. We need to make sure she will cooperate with our deceptions, that she masters the art as well as we do. She can't change shape, but I can tell she has a way with words that will be very useful to the Queen's cause."

"Fair enough. Now hurry, I'm sure the missing set of armor has already been reported...!"

BACK AT CANTERLOT'S TRAIN STATION...

"Sir, I see something coming down the track! Very slowly, but there's definitely something!" one of Steelwing's squad members exclaim, and everypony in the station looks down the track. Indeed the smoke of a moving train was visible on the horizon, but the slow crawling movement toward the station was very concerning, as if the train had been damaged in some way. As it inched closer, those at the station could also see some items stuck to the train slide off and fall away below the track.

Once it was close enough, Steelwing and his squad could see that the train had somehow been coated in a sticky yellow substance, decorated with large bits of something resembling chopped vegetables. Some of those oversized vegetable bits were slowly sliding down the train's sides, but more importantly the sticky substance was completely covering the train's windows, forcing the driver to run the train blind and rely on the conductor hanging out of the engine to call out any potentially vital information for the safe running of the train.

With the train inching its way into the station, Steelwing is surprised by the overwhelming smell of cheese suddenly filling the air around him, and he can barely contain his perplexity as he meets the train conductor on the platform once the train stops.

"What exactly happened to this train here?!" Steelwing asks the conductor as the civilians reluctantly filter onto the train, most of them giving the Lieutenant's squad dirty looks as they do so.

"I'm afraid it will take too long to explain everything, sir. Just know that the Element Bearers are alright and the train will need a good scrubbing once the route is finished." the conductor sighs out, very obviously aware at the unpleasant situation he was caught up in.

"And it will be hard for the public to avoid blaming us for all this..." Steelwing sighs out in return as the squad assembles behind him for the escort to the castle.

"I'm not going to keep you from your duties, sir. Those young mares are needed at the castle, and the delay has been long enough already." the conductor concludes, ducking back into the train as Steelwing's squad begins forming up around the disembarking Element Bearers.

"Thank you. It's a... small comfort considering how crazy today has been..." Steelwing trails off, warily looking around as he moves to the head of the escort line.

"Alright everypony, doubletime! We need to make sure the mares get to the castle without further haste!" the Lieutenant exclaims to his squad, starting away in the doubletime march with his squad surrounding the Element Bearers in a box-like formation...

Encounter at Canterlot Tower

"You wanted to see me, Your Highnesses?"

"Your timing is impeccable, Captain. Your younger sister and her friends are on their way to rendezvous at Canterlot Tower, we thought you should join us in watching the unfolding events."

"At least I won't have to worry about you two being at each other's throats... surprised I've never seen this before..."

"The existence of this system is supposed to be hush-hush. Otherwise spying rumors would spread through Equestria like wildfire." Princess Luna comments as Acting Guard Captain Shining Armor stops beside her in front of the magically-projected screen originally generated by Celestia. On the screen itself is a split image with the Element Bearers being escorted through the streets of Canterlot on the left side and Celestia herself on the right side.

"'Tis amazing what intelligence this spell can gather... this kind of magic was unknown to me before the thousand-year exile..." the moon princess continues on, staring transfixed at the screen.

"Aunt Lulu, focus! They're supposed to be getting the Elements of Harmony to fix all this mess, but we haven't seen this 'Discord' anywhere in Canterlot recently." Princess Cadance comments from the other side of Princess Luna. "I just wish we had an idea where he was, what he was doing right now..."

"Apologies, you're right. Must keep flipping through the feeds..." Luna states, snapping herself out of the trance. The magic of her horn blinks repeatedly, each time prompting the image on the screen to change.

"That's Ponyville, looks like the crazy animals and weather has taken hold there..." Cadance comments about one image in the bunch that flashes by. "Cloudsdale doused in cola, creamy cheese in Fillydelphia, Manehattan soaked in apple cider... not a lot any of us can do about it until he's defeated."

"And the released prisoners are still out there." Shining Armor snorts out as the flipping images stop at a Guard trying to wrestle a released prisoner back into custody. The Acting Guard Captain didn't know what disturbed him worse, the general emptiness of the street or the heckling of the Guard by the few witnesses that were there - he wanted to believe the statements of hatred were the product of the unique circumstances of the situation, but feared that they were not...

The image on the screen changes again, showing Celestia alone at the entryway to Canterlot Tower. The other alicorns as well as Shining Armor watch as the Element Bearers burst through the doors leading inside the building, Lieutenant Steelwing and his escorting squad briefly glimpsed as the doors swing shut again.

"Princess Celestia, we came as fast as we could!" Twilight shouts through panting breath.

Celestia responds with practiced graciousness: "Thank you, Twilight. Thank you, all."

Twilight starts again, spilling all her questions out at once: "Is this about the weather? And the animals' weird behavior? What's happening out there? Why isn't my magic working? Is there–"

Celestia finally raises a hoof to interrupt her former student and simply invites the group to follow her into the tower hall. The narration of the sun princess is heard at different volume levels as Luna tries to tweak the viewing angle on the screen to get a better look at what is going on inside: "I've called you here for a matter of great importance. It seems an old foe of mine, someone I thought I had defeated long ago, has returned. His name... is Discord."

The group on the screen temporarily stops because of Fluttershy being scared of the stained glass image of Discord. Again Luna fiddles with the screen to present to Shining Armor and Cadance the clear image of the chaotic being in the stained glass depiction - Cadance herself seeing it for the first time - as the narration continues on: "Discord is the mischievous spirit of disharmony. Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness. Luna and I saw how miserable life was for Earth ponies, Pegasi, and unicorns alike, so after discovering the Elements of Harmony, we combined our powers and rose up against him, turning him to stone."

Rainbow Dash is heard letting out a positive exclamation, but Shining Armor and Cadance exchange a worried look as they fear about what Celestia will say next on the screen. Sure enough, just seconds later, the conversation turns to how Celestia and Luna can't use the Elements of Harmony anymore, and both Shining and Cadance can start to see Luna beginning to break down in shame, forced to watch the whole ordeal unfold instead of being able to help fix it like before.

"Oh no, not again!" Cadance exclaims. "Auntie, please, I know this is tough for you, but please don't turn off the screen! We all need to know what is going on!"

"Painful... much too painful..." Luna weakly replies, bowing her head down and letting the magic sustaining the screen stop. At first the image simply starts to go fuzzy, then the screen begins to collapse on itself.

"Shining, hang on!" Cadance exclaims again, firing a small burst of magic at the screen. As Luna continues sobbing with her head bowed in shame, the screen is stabilized, though the images are still fuzzy due to Cadance's lower power level compared to Celestia and Luna.

"Can you try to get that picture focused again?" Shining asks just in time for Luna to lunge in a comfort cling in his direction, which pulls him flat on his face for a few moments.

"I'm trying... there's a lot of interference for some reason..." Cadance answers, her face contorting into a determined stare. Shining and Cadance can only catch little snippets of the conversation about fighting Discord.

"Wait... are the Elements of Harmony gone?!?" Shining Armor exclaims in wide-eyed shock as he observes Celestia and the Element Bearers in the same state of shock through the fuzzy images on the floating screen.

Just seconds later, the screen cuts out completely, Discord's voice loudly filling the room instead: "Make sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?"

The amplitude of the voice, comparable to the "Royal Canterlot Voice" in magnitude, brings wincing to all three ponies in the room, and when they recover enough they see Discord has somehow completely taken over the "feed", using it to show off the various ways to taunt both Princess Celestia and the Element Bearers.

"Oh, I will NOT stand for that!" Shining Armor indignantly shouts, snorting as he sees Discord prance on top of a stained-glass image of his younger sister.

"Shining, we have bigger problems to deal with. And maybe we should be helping find wherever those Elements of Harmony ended up!" Cadance suggests, just seconds before the screen morphs into a floating version of Discord's head!

The head repeats a line Discord had just delivered to Celestia and the Element Bearers: "To retrieve your missing Elements, just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the Elements back where you began."

"What does that even mean?!" Shining Armor shouts to the floating projection of Discord's head once the initial shock of the change wore off.

"Sorry, but I'm not going to let you help them. Show was fun while it lasted, but this connection is now terminated." the floating head answers before disappearing with a poof of magic, leaving just empty space in its place.

"No!" Cadance shouts, the magic of her horn flickering wildly as she tried to 'reconnect' the magic that had been used to create the floating screen.

"Oh, if I could only get my hooves on him...!" Shining Armor growls out.

"It's no use. He's got some kind of jamming going on." Cadance sadly reports with a shake of her head.

"Then I'll have to find out what's going on myself. Cadance, stay here with Luna, I'll go try to find out what's happening with the Element Bearers." Shining orders, wriggling out of Luna's grip and leaving a disappointed moon princess behind as he turns to leave the suite...

The Maze Master

"Lieutenant, you know where the Element Bearers are heading?!"

"Yes sir, Princess Celestia informed me they were on the way to the castle's hedge maze."

"That's the same area of the castle grounds where the statue garden is! Or was, considering the devastation of battling against Discord..."

"Sir, who's 'Discord'?"

"The being that been behind all this mess! Celestia sent the Element Bearers to stop him, and we need to help them! Follow me, full gallop!"

"Yes sir!"

Acting Guard Captain Shining Armor and Lieutenant Steelwing galloped side-by-side on the path back toward the castle's statue gardens, hoping to catch up to the Element Bearers before they entered the maze and what they feared was Discord closing off any attempt at outside interference. Adding to the frustration was Discord having cut off previous contact with what was going on, causing critical delays in attempting to locate a pony that knew where the group of mares was going.

As the two Guard stallions passed through the statue garden, Shining Armor noticed in passing that the battle damage from his first fight with Discord seemed to have been repaired - the pedestal where Discord had been was still empty, but otherwise the garden looked undamaged. In retrospect, he should've recognized that this was a sign not everything was as it seemed, but at the moment was too focused on trying to get to the hedge maze to see it at the time.

Nearing the entrance of the maze, the sounds of Twilight's voice fill her older brother's ears, prompting the latter to skid to a stop in front of the entrance to listen more carefully. Steelwing narrowly avoids running headlong into his senior officer, also skidding to a stop near the entrance.

"What's going on, sir?" Steelwing asks, looking cautiously into the maze as he does so.

"Shhh! Listen!" Shining Armor answers, pricking ears up trying to catch as much of what he was hearing as he could.

Finally, the words of Twilight Sparkle ring out clearly: "Everypony head to the middle as fast as you can, and we'll regroup there!"

"You heard that, right Lieutenant? Twily and her friends are heading for the center of the maze, we should do the same!" Shining Armor exclaims, charging into the maze without any further delay.

"But sir, I didn't see any...!" Steelwing starts objecting, before scrambling to catch up to the Acting Captain charging into the maze. Shining disappears around a turn, and when Steelwing attempts to round the same turn he runs headlong into a hedge that suddenly rises in his path, blocking the way forward and isolating Shining Armor in the maze.

Steelwing naturally opens wings to try to get a higher view, but upon takeoff hits an invisible "ceiling" that knocks him back down to the ground! With all other horizontal means of movement blocked by hedges, Steelwing quickly flips around and heads back out, hoping to work his way around the edge of the maze and meet Shining Armor on the other side...

"Twily! TWILY! Where are you?! Can you hear me?!?" Shining Armor shouts as he gallops through the maze - his efforts all in vain due to Discord's distortions of the maze as part of his game.

The Acting Captain only stops in his hoofsteps when he hears laughing. Perking ears to locate the source of the sound, he cautiously proceeds down a side path, and when he sees the path open up he peeks around a corner. He spots not Twilight, but Applejack looking down into a small pond!

"Odd, I don't remember there being water features in this..." Shining Armor begins to puzzle, only to be interrupted by Discord's appearance near Applejack!

The Guard unicorn growls, his horn activating with magenta-colored magic as he prepares to attack, but as soon as he fully steps into the open area to aim a charge the scene in front of him disappears! Instead, all that is left is the voices of Twilight and Applejack in conversation...

"Twily! TWILY! IF YOU CAN HEAR YOUR BIG BRO, GIVE A SHOUT!" the older brother naturally exclaims, answered not by the younger sister's voice but by mocking laughter coming from one of the side tunnels!

"Discord, what have you done with my sister and her friends?!?" Shining Armor shouts, the rage within him rising as he charges into the side tunnel, following its twists and turns deeper into the maze.

When the path ends, he finds himself dumped out in a small open area where he can see balloons rising in the distance, along with the voices of both Pinkie Pie and Discord in the same general direction. Believing that some answers would be found in that direction, he starts across the area, but to his alarm notices the hedges making up the maze shifting around, directing the path in a different direction that it originally did.

"I'm really getting tired of this trickery!" Shining Armor growls under his breath as he backs up in his hoofsteps, hoping that this would reset the original configuration of the maze. Instead, he slips directly into a mud puddle, and as he tries to wrestle his way back out the voices of Discord and Pinkie Pie respectively fill the air around him:

"What's the matter, Pinkie Pie? I thought you appreciated a good laugh?"

"It's different. They're laughing at me."

"It's hardly different. Your friends laugh at you all the time."

"My friends laugh with me, not at me."

"Oh, really?"

After the last words Discord spoke, Shining hears the laughter of the other Element Bearers joining in the general laughing chorus, and he immediately realizes that the entire thing has been a setup. He looked around for any signs of Steelwing, but found none, concluding the junior pegasus had either been cut off or sent in a completely different direction due to Discord's control of the maze.

"I gotta figure a way out of here, somehow..." Shining growls out, shaking what mud he can off his coat and armor. The laughing and other sounds tail off, leaving Shining Armor with no reference point on where to go next. Instead, he grimly pushes on further into the maze, passing across the small open area and down where the path ahead would lead him...

A-maze-ingly Frustrating

Acting Captain of the Canterlot Guard Shining Armor continues to twist and turn his way through Discord's distortion of the castle hedge maze, the same machinations that ensured the draconequus could succeed in the corruption of the Element Bearers also preventing Shining from providing any meaningful help. He could not even reach Lieutenant Steelwing, who he had to assume was also lost in the maze or simply cut off from entering it. The only hope was continuing to press forward, hoping to find an exit. Uneasily, he noticed an upward slope in the path that wasn't part of the usual maze design, which added to the pressure of frustration building within him...

Shining Armor stopped in his tracks when a flash of bright white light, rather like a camera flash, suddenly appeared down one side path. This somewhat surprised him, as he knew all the tourists that normally traversed the maze for entertainment had long ago been evacuated, but there was always the possibility that somepony had been missed, or was otherwise also caught up in Discord's distortions of the maze. He turned down the side path he had seen the flash coming from, calling ahead to see if anypony - or anything - would answer back.

There was no verbal answer, but after a few twists and turns Shining Armor found himself facing an open area with a sun logo in a purple circle on the ground. This gave him some hope, because such areas were close to the center of the maze the Element Bearers were headed for! However, the stallion noticed the normal way out was blocked by a giant stone slab with three diamond-shaped openings carved into it, from which the same white light he saw earlier was streaming from.

The mare Rarity was seen staring into the light, and Shining Armor became greatly alarmed that this was one of Discord's traps! He charged directly toward the scene, encouraged when Rarity turned away from the light and muttering to her under his breath to resist. Just before breaking through into the same open area, however, Shining rebounded off a section of hedge that shot up in his path, sending him tumbling head-over-hooves backwards!

The Guard stallion growled as he tried to return to an upright position, hearing Discord's mocking laughter around him. At this point, Shining was starting to become less and less concerned about decorum, not even bothering to try to move according to his military. Instead, he whirled around once on his hooves, throwing suspicious glances in every direction to try to find some clue of where to go next, or even how to get to Rarity.

"Discord, I swear to Celestia once I get out of this maze I'm going to help my sister and her friends take you apart!" the stallion shouted in rage as he backtracked in an attempt to find another route to the center.

This outburst produced another round of mocking laughter from Discord, this time followed by an image of his head appearing in his path: "I see my marvelous game is getting to your head too. Fortunately, I won't need to afflict you directly, just send you around and around in circles. An amusing branch to the masterplan."

Shining charged in the direction of Discord's image, but it disappeared before he could reach it. Instead, all he heard was the voices of both Rarity and his sister Twilight Sparkle, both of them seeming to be just on the other side of the hedge:

"Rarity! Are we glad to see... Why are you carrying a humongous boulder?"

"What do you mean, 'boulder'?! This big, beautiful, bedazzling rock is a diamond! And it's all mine! Keep your envious little eyes off it! I found it and it's mine fair and square!"

A desperate Shining now tries to stick his snout into the hedge, maybe hoping to get in far enough to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the other side. Instead, his snout bounces off, as if it was pressing against a solid wall. The stallion then tilts his head down, cautiously pushing his horn forward into the same hedge, only to meet the same resistance as before.

It was at this point that Shining realized that Discord must've had some kind of magic applied to the hedge, so that the stallion could see or hear what was going on but be unable to interfere himself. This increased his frustration level even more and forced him to consider what he called "wall surgery" - deliberately deploying his shielding spell in such a way that a section of wall could be cut out from in front of him. Due to its highly destructive nature, he did this only as a measure of last resort.

The magenta magic on Shining's horn began glowing, directing the "cut" to start above the top of the hedge. As soon as it hit the top of the maze hedge, though, it immediately ran into hard resistance, the "cutting edge" refusing to budge any further down in either direction. Shining gritted his teeth as he tried to force the issue, the top of the hedge showered with sparks of magic energy that he feared would set the entire place aflame. It was all to no avail, and only when the distinct odor of burning leaves hit his nostrils did he finally stop his efforts. The leaves of the hedge smouldered for a minute, then went out, much to Shining's relief.

The delay caused by Shining's attempt to cut a hole in the hedge surrounding him naturally played into Discord's plan, who took the opportunity to reconfigure the maze to keep him cut off between his own attacks on the Element Bearers. The Acting Guard Captain would continue to wander the maze, with no obvious target or destination, or even a clue where his sister and her friends might be. Amidst mounting frustration, Shining Armor's only relief came when he heard wings overhead.

Alas, this relief was short-lived. He expected Lieutenant Steelwing to be up there, or maybe one of the alicorn princesses who belatedly realized their help was actually needed here. Instead, he only saw Rainbow Dash, streaking away at top speed to a destination he couldn't figure out. Intuition told him that very bad things were about to happen, and he raced ahead down the path, heart thumping heavily in his chest. After a few turns, the ground beneath his hooves opened up with fissures, along with some of the hedge walls disappearing around him!

Shining tried to slide to a stop, but as soon as he hit the fissured area it collapsed completely, the ground opening up in a tunnel that Shining tumbles down into. The tunnel twists in a narrow but steep corkscrew shape, the Guard stallion banging into the sides repeatedly as he passes through it. By the time he reaches the bottom, the blows have not only left him bruised, but unconscious...

Shining Armor moans as he tries to open his eyes again, blinking dust and dirt out of them. His coat has been extensively muddied as well as his mane and tail disheveled, and several places throb with dull pain from the impacts on the tunnel walls. Two shapes vaguely appear in front of him, one pink and one a grey color, but it takes some blinking to distinguish them clearly: an approaching Princess Cadance, escorted by Lieutenant Steelwing!

"Oh thank goodness, it looks like he was just shaken up!" Steelwing announces as both he and Cadance stop in front of him.

"Ugh, how long was I out for? I can feel those bumps all over..." Shining Armor moans out as Cadance helps him back onto his hooves, the former still somewhat dizzy after his downward twisting tumble.

"Not sure. I went out after we saw part of the maze collapse from the outside. The Element Bearers are gone - don't know where they went - and so is Discord. The Elements of Harmony are still unaccounted for." Cadance answers.

Shining does not initially answer verbally, but his twitching eye and mussed-up mane alarmingly reminds Cadance of Twilight Sparkle's occasional "freak-outs", and she feared the Acting Captain was about to snap in a similar way. She backs up slightly, and Lieutenant Steelwing does the same hastily after seeing Cadance do it.

"In other words, everything I was trying to do was a big waste of time?" Shining asks, cocking his head to one side and making a face similar to one Cadance had seen on Twilight when she was on the verge of one of the aforementioned "freak-outs".

"Um... yes, sir?" Steelwing cautiously answers, feeling unable to stay silent but fearing what would come next.

"Excuse me, then." Shining Armor states, his eye twitching a few times before he completely turns around and takes a few steps away from Cadance and Steelwing.

The latter two exchange worried looks, but then are shocked back into paying attention to Shining when the latter begins shouting skyward, a series of high-volume curses aimed generally at Discord. The language - not fit to be reproduced here - utterly shocks Cadance, who had no idea Shining even knew the words he was now screaming skyward.

"Did you know he was capable of cursing like that?" a mortified Princess Cadance asks Lieutenant Steelwing.

"Only when pushed to his absolute limit. The only time I remember him ever doing anything like this was the time he lost the last Canterlot Guard Trivia Trot tournament by one point." Steelwing answers with a sheepish grin.

"Twilight's held the championship of every Trivia Trot she's been involved in. No wonder he'd snap under that kind of condition!" Cadance comments, biting her lower lip as Shining continues his tirade.

"Do you think we should leave him alone, Your Highness?" Steelwing asks.

"No, he'll tire out soon enough. At least, I hope he does so soon..." Cadance answers, maintaining her mortified expression alongside Steelwing. The two quietly agree to leave Shining alone until he had tired himself out from the raging, then escort him back to the castle proper, realizing there was little else they could do under the current circumstances...

Bats No Good!

"So we need to make sure all this stuff gets to the Captain in the medical ward, so that he can finish the day's paperwork. Make sure to bring a bottle of ink and several quill pens as..."

"INCOMPETENT FOAL, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

The roar of Princess Luna's Royal Canterlot Voice booming through the castle startled Lieutenant Captain Fidelitas enough to temporarily stop his explanation of what he wanted done to the pair of Upper Class Guards. Left in temporary authority by Acting Captain Shining Armor's attempt to penetrate Discord's maze, Fidelitas made it a priority to attempt to get the paperwork to Captain Gibraltar in medical so that he could finish it. Interruptions to this effort were frequent, mostly by subordinates reporting something going on in the city as an aftereffect of Discord's "rampage" through it, but hearing the voice of Princess Luna herself reverberating through the hallways stop the effort cold.

"Continue your organization effort, I have to check out what exactly is going on with Princess Luna." Fidelitas orders the two Guards, taking off without any additional delay or dialogue.

Fidelitas sprints at full gallop out the door and twists and turns through several hallways, narrowly missing some ponies trying to conduct business as much as they could on such a bizarre day as had already transpired. A million thoughts raced through the Lieutenant Captain's head about what the booming words might've been, and he was so distracted he nearly tripped over an Upper Class pegasus guard!

This guard was sitting near the entrance to the royal suite where the alicorn sisters were currently located, nursing a bump to his head, although in reality his pride had been hurt more than any actual physical injury he suffered. Beside him was a rolled-up parchment scroll, also ejected in anger by the night princess.

"Guard, what are you doing sitting here?! Report!" Fidelitas snaps out upon finally seeing the guard and stopping near the suite entrance.

"Sorry sir, the bump knocked me dizzy for a few minutes, I couldn't stand up straight. You know Princess Luna does not know her own strength sometimes, even without the voice..." the guard sheepishly tries to answer.

"Princess Luna tossed you out of the royal chamber?! Why?" a now-suspicious Fidelitas asks the subordinate guard.

"I was trying to give her this." the guard answers, fumbling with hooves to try to pick up the scroll beside him. "Lieutenant Vesper of the batponies told me to go back to Her Highness and rewrite whatever orders were supposedly on here, but Her Highness said she never wrote such orders and that I was trying to trick her!"

"Let me see that scroll..." Fidelitas asks, pulling it up with grey-colored unicorn magic. While levitating it in the air, Fidelitas unrolls it, trying to study the scribbles on the parchment.

"Odd... maybe its written backwards, or upside-down..." Fidelitas then comments after a few seconds of fruitless study, manipulating the unrolled scroll several different ways.

Finally, after a minute of careful study, Lieutenant Captain Fidelitas lets the scroll roll back up, a thoroughly-puzzled look on his face. He couldn't deny the official seal of the princess of the night affixed to the document in the lower-right corner, but as far as he could tell the ink on the page was scribbles - nothing that resembled text appeared to be written on the parchment.

"Guard, I don't know what's going on here, but both the Princess and I have higher priorities than this right now." Fidelitas finally speaks, continuing to look at the guard warily. "Since Princess Luna clearly doesn't want to be bothered dealing with this, I want you to go back to the batpony caves and have them resuming following their previous orders, irrespective of whatever this text was supposed to convey."

"But sir, the original orders were for them to assist searching the city for 'Discord'. We know where he is now, so going back to the original orders will do no good!" the guard objects.

"How do you know what those original orders were?" Fidelitas asks again, his suspicion increasing as he does so.

"Guard Upper Class Arcturus told me, sir." the guard answers, hoping that would allay the suspicion.

Fidelitas is lost in thought for a minute, before finally deciding to stuff the scroll he was still levitating into a saddlebag and giving a new set of instructions: "I still want you to go back to the batpony caves, Guard, but tell them to stand down until nightfall unless another set of orders reach them. If this is not to Princess Luna's liking, I will deal with it myself. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then go. And make it doubletime - we've already wasted enough effort on this back-and-forth."

"Right away, sir!" the guard answers, quickly turning around and starting a doubletime canter down the castle hallways.

Fidelitas, meanwhile, decides to go back to his previous task - the distractions of the day would ensure the scroll, and its deceptive intentions, would be forgotten about until it was too late to do anything about it. Meanwhile, the guard, a disguised Changeling drone, now had free reign to keep spreading confusion among the batponies - confusion that would eventually lead to resentment and fertile ground for further deceptions to be performed.

SOMETIME LATER...

"Halt, feathered one!" the batpony guard in the sentry box exclaims as a pegasus guard appears to descend into the cave opening.

The pegasus lands, then crosses his hooves over his chest while on his haunches. The batpony guard does the same - a sign that both of them were Changeling drones in disguise. The infiltration was now complete, with two members of the Royal Guard "replaced".

"You have returned with new orders for Lieutenant Vesper?" the batpony asks, presumably to throw off the suspicion of anyone that might be observing the scene.

"That is correct." the disguised pegasus dutifully answers.

"Very well, you may proceed." the batpony guard comments, and the pegasus wastes no time disappearing into the caves. The plan was working to perfection, for the benefit of Queen Chrysalis and the Changeling kingdom...

Ready to Pass

"Thank you for bringing me this paperwork, Fidelitas. I really appreciate it, considering I'm going to be stuck in here for a while yet."

"Not a problem, sir. I know this stuff still needs doing, despite whatever is going on in Canterlot."

"Certainly, but there's something else I need you to do yet."

"Oh? What is it, Captain?"

"Once Twilight Sparkle and her friends defeat this... whatever... currently plaguing Equestria, I want you to prepare to 'pass the torch' to Shining Armor."

Lieutenant Captain Fidelitas recoils slightly from what he had just heard coming out of Captain Gibraltar's mouth, because he knew full well what it meant - the de facto resignation of Gibraltar as Captain of the Canterlot Guard and the specific choice of Shining Armor as his successor in the post. It was a tradition carried over from the guards of the unicorn rulers, so Fidelitas knew it would happen at some point. Nevertheless, the timing still alarmed him.

"Sir, are you absolutely sure about doing that? Even with your injuries, you are still capable of performing administrative tasks. Let Shining finish the task Princess Celestia gave him, and then maybe..." Fidelitas begins to object.

"No, Fidelitas. For a very long time, Princess Celestia has made it clear that Shining was to eventually become Captain of the Canterlot Guard one day. I will not stall or deny her will any longer." Gibraltar answers, shaking his head. "The events of the release of 'Discord' will cause the Congress to demand a sacrificial lamb in any case. The easiest thing to do is to offer myself up to Celestia for that task, which will solve two different problems at once."

"Even so, sir, he would still be the youngest Captain of the Guard on record if we went through the process of 'passing the torch'. I'm not even sure Princess Celestia would approve the appointment considering it is rumored he is planning to propose to Princess Cadance in the near future..."

"The truth or falsehood of those rumors are not relevant to whether he can become Captain of the Guard or not - he will be capable of handling both duties, trust me. And you, Lieutenant Captain, should know well how qualified he is to hold the position despite his relative youth. The politicians will pontificate long and hard, as they usually do, but they will approve the appointment in the end because they don't want to look like ungrateful bastards. Especially if Twilight Sparkle and her friends can indeed get us out of this situation."

"And that brings up my other concern, Captain. I believe all this talk is premature when 'Discord' is still loose and causing upset in Equestria."

"That may be true, Lieutenant Captain, but my mind is made up and will not be persuaded otherwise. I don't want to hear any more arguments about this. The process should be ready to begin once 'Discord' is defeated or otherwise under control. Is that clear, Lieutenant Captain?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Very good. Make sure to have somepony come by every hour on the hour to keep me updated on the current situation while I try to finish this paperwork."

"Yes, sir. Am I dismissed, sir?"

"If this is all the paperwork accounted for, then yes, you are."

As soon as Fidelitas turned away from Captain Gibraltar and got out of earshot, he blew out a sigh. This was certainly not how he, or maybe even Princess Celestia, wanted things to play out, but there was no use in arguing about things now. He would just have to follow what Captain Gibraltar wanted, and hang on for the ride that would follow...

MEANWHILE, IN CELESTIA'S ROYAL SUITE...

"At least we found Shining alright... what's Aunt Lulu upset about now?" Princess Cadance explains to her aunt Celestia as Lieutenant Steelwing, acting as an escort, warily regards a pouting Princess Luna.

"Something going on with the batponies, they've never been entirely comfortable with going out in the daytime, and Luna thinks they're trying to wriggle their way out of their obligation with fake orders. Hopefully Fidelitas can figure out what exactly is going on with them." Princess Celestia answers.

"Permission to come in, Your Highnesses?" Acting Captain Shining Armor pipes up from just outside the royal suite.

"Permission granted, Captain. I have a few questions to ask of you." Princess Celestia answers, Cadance and Lieutenant Steelwing turning around so that both of them are beside Celestia as Shining Armor cautiously enters the royal suite.

"He should really be getting those batponies doing what I originally ordered them to do!" Princess Luna interjects from her pouting in the corner of the suite.

"The Lieutenant Captain is perfectly capable of untangling that mystery without additional help. The focus needs to be on what happened to both the Elements of Harmony and the ponies supposed to bear them against 'Discord'." Celestia counters, again provoking wary looks in Luna's direction from Steelwing and Shining Armor.

When Luna gives no further objection, at least verbally, Celestia continues on her speech: "Unconfirmed reports is that the Element Bearers have been teleported back to Ponyville along with 'Discord', and I need as much information as I can get out of the Captain, as he was in the maze when the teleportation was triggered."

"I don't have a lot of information to give, Your Highness, but I definitely know the magic possessed by 'Discord' was distorting the area." Shining Armor answers. "I was able to see Twily and some of her friends, and could definitely see he was manipulating them, somehow. Especially Rainbow Dash, who flew away from the maze and seemed to trigger the temporary disappearance of the maze."

"My intuition is confirmed, then." Celestia states, her face turning grim as she does so. A rectangle of yellow magic resolves into a floating screen, showing Discord with Twilight and her friends in the hedge maze - although not on camera himself, Shining Armor does recognize some of the scenes from his recent experience.

"I wondered if Discord's magic was distorting the monitoring spells, but it looks like based on your account the events are at least partly true." the sun princess continues. "With Rainbow Dash gone, I fear any attempt to use the Elements of Harmony will fail miserably. Utilizing 'the backstop' will be necessary, and I must know as soon as possible when to activate it."

"What does that even mean, Your Highness?" Shining Armor naturally asks, quite puzzled by the cryptic 'backstop' reference.

"You will find out soon enough, Captain, because I want you to come with me and Princess Cadance." Celestia orders. "Lieutenant Steelwing, I want you to stay with Princess Luna and wait for further instructions regarding the batpony situation. If anypony else comes by, I want you to relay that we will not be available until after 'the backstop' is activated, and that this information should also be passed on to Captain Gibraltar in the medical ward."

"Understood, Your Highness." Steelwing replies in a salute, although still looking rather warily at Luna's unhappy mood.

"Come with me, doubletime. Things may need to happen very quickly, I fear." Celestia states to both Cadance and Shining Armor, starting out of the royal suite as she does so.

Shining Armor looks over at Cadance, who only gives a shrug before scrambling to catch up with her aunt. Very quickly, Shining Armor begins doing the same thing, leaving Lieutenant Steelwing in the suite with Luna alone.

"Whatever this plan is, I hope it works..." Steelwing comments to himself, nerves rising about the idea of being alone with an unhappy, sleep-deprived Luna...

The Backstop

"Oh, for goodness... his magic is strong here, I can't get a good signal because of all the interference...!"

"Honestly, Your Highness, I'm amazed it works as well as it does at all..."

"Not now, Captain, I need... to... concentrate..."

Acting Guard Captain Shining Armor looks over nervously at Princess Cadance as Princess Celestia continues trying to get a stable image inside the floating frame of yellow magic. The sun princess sticks her tongue out - something Shining had previously seen his younger sister doing - as an image of a heavily-distorted landscape, presumed to be somewhere near or inside Ponyville, flickered between bursts of "static".

"With how distorted this place is, I wouldn't be surprised if Twilight was somehow able to teleport her and all her friends back to Ponyville without having to stop for line-of-sight readjustments..." Princess Cadance comments.

"Yes, but why would Discord allow that if it means them finding the Elements of Harmony? There must be something we're missing here..." Shining Armor answers.

"Which is exactly why... I'm trying to get... alright, it's stable enough. No guarantees it'll hold for too long, though..." Celestia adds, grimly focused on the screen in front of her.

Shining Armor and Cadance squint as they try to make out something recognizable on the screen, which still flickers and distorts once in a while despite Celestia's best efforts. The scene appears to be the inside of the the Golden Oak Library in Ponyville, with Twilight and Spike visible from the perspective of the "camera". The now desaturated fellow Element Bearers dart in and out of the camera's view.

"Wait a minute, something's not right. Everypony except Twilight and Spike looks... greyscale." Cadance somberly comments.

"Maybe it's because of the spell not working correctly?" Shining Armor offers.

"No, the effect is real. And that's what is worrying me." Celestia confirms, sliding sideways toward a desk in the royal office the three ponies were currently watching events from.

"Spike just pulled a book off the shelf... where'd it go?!" Cadance exclaims, referencing the images on the screen as the voices of Twilight and some of her fellow Element Bearers sound out in a distorted manner, interrupted by bursts of static:

"Fluttershy, you'd better...!"

"I don't have any book..."

"Hey, do you even know what...!"

"No, but if you want it, I want it!"

"Beats me."

"Get back! All of you! This is my book, and I'm going to READ IT!"

"I see Twilight's overprotective book behavior hasn't changed since she moved to Ponyville." Cadance comments again, letting out a slight giggle in spite of the serious mood in the room.

"More than that though, that's where Discord put the Elements of Harmony!" Shining Armor exclaims, pointing to the flickering image on screen.

"Yes, she's found them, but..." Celestia somberly speaks again, seeming to lack the relieved excitement she should've had at seeing the Elements relocated.

It quickly becomes apparent why Celestia is not excited as Twilight makes her now apathetic friends wear each of their Elements, putting on her own crown and having Spike become "the new Rainbow Dash" to wear the Element of Loyalty in her place. The already somber mood of the three watching fell even more so.

"I've got a very bad feeling about this..." Shining Armor comments as the group starts leaving Golden Oak Library.

To keep the group in view, Celestia's horn flickers in its magic in attempt to switch the view of the "camera", but results in an intense static effect on the floating screen at first. She growls in frustration, making a comment as she again concentrates trying to get a clear image: "Discord has manifested close by, it's increased the interference. I can't afford to have a blocked signal...!"

Cadance and Shining Armor exchange nervous glances, now quite worried that a clear image will not return for a critical point in the fight against Discord, but after more flickering from Celestia's magic horn the image resolves again, albeit in complete grayscale instead of color.

"No use, can't do any better with all the magic interference..." Celestia growls out, shaking her head and letting out a snorting sound as she does so.

"What's with the target on him? And the overdramatic poses? Does he think the activation will be..." Shining Armor worriedly comments, quickly followed by a shushing on the part of both Celestia and Cadance.

On the screen, the three ponies watching see Twilight Sparkle attempt to use the Elements of Harmony against Discord, producing a spectacular light show... and not much else. Shining and Cadance watch the screen in petrified horror as the apparently defeated Element Bearers begin to disperse, tossing the Elements of Harmony away like trash as they do so, while Discord seems to happily skate away to cause more chaos.

The only one that didn't seem horrified by what was just shown on the screen was Princess Celestia, interestingly enough. With a look of fierce determination, a flicker of her magic causes the screen to disappear, and she shuffles over to a desk underneath which can be seen a large sack.

"Your Highness, what are you...?!?" Shining Armor asks in stunned confusion.

"This is the backstop, Captain. Nothing else will work now." Celestia bluntly states as she uses the unicorn magic to pull the large sack out from underneath the desk, then yanking the cords open and letting its contents spill out.

Shining Armor and Princess Cadance are quite surprised to find rolled-up scrolls - dozens of them at minimum - pour out of the bag and roll to a stop in front of them! Shining levitates one up using his own magic, studying the seal on it carefully.

"These have Twily's seal on them." Shining Armor says to Cadance after his careful study, surprised enough to let the scroll drop back down to the floor again.

"The friendship letters?" Cadance guesses tentatively, her and Shining looking over at Celestia as she does so.

"Yes, I am sending them all back to her! It's the only option left to us now!" Celestia all but shouts, beginning to levitate scrolls from the large pile and poofing them away with the spell that would send them to Spike in Ponyville, expression fiercely determined as the process follows some kind of pacing that only Celestia can determine from Canterlot.

"Wait... ALL of them?!? One after the other?" Shining exclaims, eyes growing wide as he realizes how painful such a "spamming" is going to be on the baby dragon.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Captain..." Cadance nervously comments, her tone clearly also sounding if she was not happy about it happening either...

It was thus the younger alicorn princess and the Acting Captain of the Guard watched uneasily as Princess Celestia continued implementing her "backstop", the only sounds in the room being the "poof" of each scroll as it was sent away by the determined Celestia to Spike in Ponyville...

We Shall Have Order

"You're right, Spike. I've got to fight for my friendships. For them. For me. For Equestria!... Oh... uh... why don't you just stay here and rest? I'll take care of the whole fighting for friendship thing myself."

"Ugh...you...do...that...Twi... ERRRP!"

Acting Guard Captain Shining Armor and Princess Cadance exchange nervous glances as Princess Celestia continues to send out scrolls to Ponyville, the aftereffects obvious on the floating screen as Spike on the other end continues to burp them up, each scroll sending another wincingly-intense wave of pain through his small body. The small dragon remains curled up on the floor, the only way he knows how to handle the pain.

"So, should somepony tell...?" Shining Armor whispers tentatively toward Cadance.

"Let me handle this. She may not have noticed what was going on the screen." Cadance whispers back, at that point shuffling over to beside where Celestia was still focused on the small pile of scrolls in front of her.

"Um, excuse me Auntie, but I don't think you need to keep sending them out..." Cadance cautiously asks of her aunt.

"Cadance, I'm not done yet. Let me finish with the pile." Celestia scolds, looking up from the work back towards her niece.

There is a brief, awkward pause while Celestia looks over at the floating screen, seeing (and hearing) Spike continue to belch out the letters she was sending, and then the sun princess continues: "Besides, if it didn't amuse me to have a dragon burp up letters for me, I wouldn't have taught him how to use a special variation of dragon's fire breath only he knows to do it!"

Shining Armor recoils back in mortification as an amused grin spreads across Celestia's face, and Cadance lets out a long, irritated sigh. After a few moments, she turns back to Shining Armor, already knowing arguments will be useless.

"Captain, just... go back to the office and update us on what's going on in Canterlot right now. There's no point in having you around here anymore." Cadance shoots out in exasperation.

"Understood. On my way." Shining Armor replies with a salute, not needing to be convinced that it was ultimately a good idea...

MEANWHILE, IN THE CITY OF CANTERLOT...

The unicorn guard on patrol stared with great concern around the corner at the half-destroyed offices of "The Mule", a powerful earth pony lawyer. What worried him wasn't just the devastation, but the agitated crowd coalescing around the building, shouts of sympathy and outrage from various ponies peppering the air. The old lawyer himself was perched just in front of the broken building, his aides and fellow lawyers busy at work organizing the crowd.

After a few minutes, the crowd is organized enough to allow the old lawyer to address them, his voice billowing only slightly touched by his advanced age: "Friends and fellow citizens of Canterlot, I see your outrage. I see your pain and suffering. I have experienced some of it myself from the strange force released upon the city this day, but I will need your help to see justice done for it. Are you willing to help me?"

The crowd echoes with affirmations, which causes the old stallion to press on: "You have seen with your own eyes that Princess Celestia is no longer capable of doing her job properly. Her single-minded obsession with promoting 'the magic of friendship' above all else has lead her to slack her duty to protect her city and subjects! Now I tell you, will you let this slide without consequence, fine ponies?"

The crowd again shouts out indignation and anger, his words whipping their attitude up again. He continues one more time: "We must hold the princess accountable for her negligence! We shall have order in this city again, regardless of what it costs to make it happen! Join with me, and you will get the restitution you deserve! If you're with me, give a shout!"

Immediately - and alarmingly to the guard - the entire crowd burst into shouting, demanding "restitution" and "accountability", among other things. The patrolling unicorn guard, now thoroughly spooked by the still-growing mob, immediately turned and ran at full gallop to bring news of the speech to the castle...

BACK IN PONYVILLE...

"Retreat! Retreat!" Lieutenant Meadow Song shouts out as a barrage of letters coming from a chaos-activated mail sorting machine are spewed throughout the back rooms of the Ponyville post office where some of the citizenry had retreated to as chaos enveloped their town.

The Guard Lieutenant checks if all ponies present - Guard Upper Class Caramel, the mailpony Derpy Hooves, Mr. and Mrs. Cake (the latter now very obviously "expecting" what would be the twins Pound and Pumpkin Cake) and Mayor Mare - have been evacuated before slamming the doors shut, the high-speed letters pinging off the doors as the small group catches breath in the lobby of the post office. Just outside, through the windows, is the Wonderland-style dystopia Discord has turned the town into with his chaos magic.

"I just don't know what went wrong!" Derpy Hooves exclaims through a sheepish grin, too obviously marking her as the source of the idea to hide in that back area in the first place.

"You wall-eyed pegasus, you're going to get us all killed with your ideas!" Caramel shouts in indignant frustration.

"Guard, yelling won't do any good here." Mayor Mare interjects. "We can't keep running the Cakes around from place to place considering how far along Mrs. Cake is right now, this kind of stress can trigger labor prematurely, and we have no safe way to a hospital if that happens."

"Do you have any ideas what we should do next, Mayor?" Meadow Songs asks of Ponyville's temporarily displaced mayor.

"I have one." comes a reply before Mayor Mare can even open her mouth to respond, the words seeming to come from the smashed front door to the post office.

All eyes turn toward the door, and see Twilight Sparkle stroll in, her eyes filled with determination. A few flickers of hope appear among the group dramatically demoralized by the sudden and unstoppable wave of chaos that's overtaken Ponyville.

"I seriously hope you do have an idea, Twilight. She's expecting very soon, and we can't keep running around with her in that condition." Mr. Cake pipes up, referring to his wife beside him.

"There's ponies I need to find. And I'm going to need your help, all of you, to find them." Twilight Sparkle explains, the grim determination in her eyes encouraging the spirits of the other ponies in the room.

"We are at your disposal, Twilight Sparkle, as you are the last hope of Equestria. Command us as if you were Princess Celestia herself." Meadow Song affirms as he and the rest of the crowd bow slightly in Twilight's direction, a foreshadowing of Celestia's ultimate intent...

Some Reassembly Required

"OK, I've gotten status updates about the situation in the city, and made sure they were relayed to Captain Gibraltar in medical ward. What did I miss?"

"Quite a bit, Shining. Take a look at the screen."

Acting Guard Captain Shining Armor looks up at the magical projection screen controlled by Princess Celestia, seeing Pinkie Pie - recently restored to her full pink bouncy vibrancy - being pulled in a cart by a similarly restored Applejack, all the while taking about how amusing it was the thought of her ever turning grey.

"How... how did Twily do that?!" Shining gasps in some degree of surprise as he sees on the screen the group of Element Bearers, minus Rainbow Dash, conversing with several citizens of Ponyville.

"I think she neutralized Discord's influence with a variation of my own magic." Princess Cadance beside him answers, freely smiling for the first time in a while that day. "Discord seemed to have been controlling their minds, and the only way to break that kind of control is the same way I use my magic to help stop arguments and fighting between ponies. I'm so proud of her."

"Heh, how about that? I guess there was a way you were able to contribute after all!" Shining explains, turning to a still-somber Celestia that was still fixated on the screen.

"Thank you everypony for helping me find where most of my friends went to. We should be able to find Rainbow Dash on our own now." Twilight Sparkle was saying to a small group of ponies on the screen.

Shining recognized some of the ponies on the screen - Mayor Mare, Guard Lieutenant Meadow Song, Guard Upper Class Caramel - and correctly guessed that the earth pony couple was Mr. and Mrs. Cake, but did not learn until later about Derpy Hooves.

"It is an honor and a pleasure to work with you, Twilight Sparkle. Good luck with finding Rainbow Dash, and driving off Discord." Mayor Mare responds, and moments later the group bows to Twilight before turning away back into the still-chaotic Ponyville.

The bowing startled Shining a bit, but when he turned toward Celestia he was even more surprised to see her with a flicker of a smile instead of being offended! The sun princess must've noticed his surprise, because she turned her head to face him before her reply: "She will make a good princess one day. Trust me, you will see in the future."

Shining, still quite surprised, turns toward Cadance, who just shrugs in response - she didn't have any more clue what Celestia was talking about, despite what Cadance already knew about Twilight.

IN THE CASTLE MEDICAL WARD...

"So, Guard, how many did you say were involved in the protesting?" Captain Gibraltar was saying as he faced the unicorn Upper Class Guard, unable to move from his bed due to the sling his broken forelegs were placed in.

"A couple dozen, sir. And I could see more ponies coming to join them." the guard answers.

"Mmm. There might indeed be a problem, especially if criminal elements released from the prison get involved. I want you to grab a fellow squad member and monitor the situation. However, do not interfere with the protests unless there is danger to innocent life and limb! Understood?" Gibraltar orders.

"Yes, sir." the guard answers again, snapping to a salute as he does so.

"Very good. Do you have a status update about the batponies?" Gibraltar asks again.

"No change from the last report, sir."

"Alright then, have a pegasus squadmate give them these orders to stand down - they won't be able to do much good now, plus will be seriously sleep-deprived in their current state. Stay here while I draw up the scroll to give them."

"Understood, sir."

Gibraltar's dark-brown colored magic begins to glimmer around his horn, levitating a piece of parchment onto a small side table beside the bed. On the same table was an inkwell with quillpen, and the disabled Guard Captain was grateful Fidelitas had had these brought to him so that he could continue to conduct some of his usual administrative business in this very bizarre day...

ON THE CANTERLOT-CLOUDSDALE SKYWAY...

The Changeling drones disguised as Agent Deceit and Agent Sadness were flying at top speed, looking back at the single E.U.P. Guard patrol hot on their tail. Their fast flight in the direction of Cloudsdale, far above the "safe speed" for pegasi flight on the "skyway" connecting the two cities, had drawn the attention of a single patroller responsible for monitoring the air route.

"Cloud! CLOUD!" Sadness shouts, pointing toward a small cloud below the marked "lane" they were flying in, and both disguised drones dive down into the cloud, temporarily throwing off the pursuing Lower Class patrol.

Seconds later, the patroller cautiously lowers himself in the direction of the cloud, only for the cloud to suddenly burst open in a blast of green magic! When the magic fades, two large creatures are revealed, one a bugbear and one a giant insect that looks like a cross between a wasp and an anteater. Needless to say, the terrified patroller tried to shout for help, but both creatures were upon him very quickly, the insect using a giant stinger to fatally end the patrol's career.

The bugbear caught the now-dead body of the patrol and stuffed it into the cloud where the two drones had been hiding - the magic that allowed pegasi to walk on clouds did not immediately dissipate upon death, and the trick would delay discovery of the body long enough for the drones to get away.

"I sure hope nopony else saw that..." the drone in the form of the giant insect said, using green magic to shift back into the Agent Deceit disguise.

"Me too. But we don't have time to speculate about that, we need to keep flying. Everything has been taken care of in the Canterlot hospital, so they won't find us until we're all the way to Cloudsdale. Let's go!" his partner explains, reverting from his bugbear form back to the Agent Sadness disguise.

Both disguised drones take off and back up to the "skyway" again, leaving more death and confusion in their wake. The real peril to Equestria was still spreading throughout the kingdom, regardless of what happened to Discord...

At What Cost

"Oh my goodness, this is more exciting than I thought it would be!"

"That big... dumb... MEANIE!"

"...Did you know she was capable of such language? Or flight speed?"

"Why are you asking me? It should be Twily you're asking."

Princess Cadance gives Acting Captain Shining Armor an unamused glance as both of them, along with Princess Celestia, watch the floating screen display Twilight and her fellow Element Bearers trying to catch the still-afflicted Rainbow Dash to undo Discord's effect on her.

"Don't insult my intelligence, Captain." Cadance states.

"Who's insulting who, Your Highness? Twily doesn't share everything with me about her..." Shining Armor replies defensively.

"Quiet, you two. I need to adjust the picture, find where he is now." Celestia interrupts, the yellow magic on her horn flickering. "I can sense from the interference source Discord is still in Ponyville, or at least where Ponyville should be, but I need more specific..."

The images on screen flicker back and forth, showing different parts of the chaos-inflicted town, before finally stopping on what seems to be a hilltop, with the scenery reminiscent of a book illustration of "Alice In Wonderland". On the hilltop, the watching group can see Discord perched on a black and red throne.

"Just like how he used to rule over Equestria, all those centuries ago." Celestia comments, gritting her teeth in a way Shining and Cadance had never seen her do before - even with all the time that had passed, the indignity of Discord's tortures still roused her anger.

"Twily and her friends will fix this soon enough, right?" Shining Armor cautiously offers.

"I think so, they just came into view..." Cadance says, pointing toward the screen where indeed Twilight Sparkle and her fellow Element Bearers were fearlessly approaching the still seated Discord.

Initially Discord seems amused by the return of the Element Bearers, but when Applejack starts giving him a tongue lashing the draconequus simply decides to give them a magical chokehold, holding Twilight's friends with magic in mid-air. A growling Twilight teleports into the middle of the group, also holding herself up with magic.

"Well at least she's got that..." Shining Armor begins to explain, referring to the teleportation.

"Look!" Cadance exclaims, as Twilight casts out her own version of Shining's shielding spell, breaking Discord's "hold" over her friends and allowing her to lower them gently to the ground. Those watching also notice that the "chaotic" chessboard ground is temporarily undone in the circle area where the shield intersected it.

"Hmmm, I know she practices it a lot, but... wow!" Shining exclaims in proud surprise. "I could barely even hold him back, this seems to have negated his effects!"

On the screen, Discord seems to still be amused instead of concerned - likely because of the failed activation earlier lulling him into a false sense of security - as Twilight picks up the tongue-lashing Applejack started: "I'll tell you what we've learned, Discord: we've learned that friendship isn't always easy, but there's no doubt it's worth fighting for!"

The now-irritated Discord makes a mocking expression and then tells them to hurry up in using the Elements because of all the chaos he's missing out of. While Discord is talking, the three ponies watching on screen notice Pinkie Pie disappearing from view, and as the other Element Bearers look around for her Princess Celestia manipulates the "camera" to do the same.

"Mare needs to get her priorities straight." Shining Armor dryly comments when they finally find Pinkie, taking one last gulping of the chocolate milk rain from a nearby cloud.

"Well, you can tell her yourself later, Captain." Celestia responds just as dryly, as the view on the floating screen returns to the united Element Bearers ready to make a second attempt at activating the Elements of Harmony.

Discord initially seems unimpressed by the second lightshow, and it's not until some of the light beams start hitting him that he realizes that his plan has failed. The screen fills with a blinding light, then a rainbow-colored flash before the picture disappears temporarily into static.

"What?! What happened?!?" Shining Armor exclaims, biting his lip in nervousness.

"When the Elements of Harmony activated, they produced a big burst of interference. It should pass in a few seconds." Princess Celestia explains.

And surely enough, the static begins resolving on the floating screen, producing an image of relieved and joyous Element Bearers, along with a more "normal" appearance for Ponyville. The "camera" pans slightly to reveal a re-petrified version of Discord, and immediately the three ponies watching breathe a powerful sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness it's finally over! I'll start undoing the lockdown and dispatch a team to bring Discord back to Canterlot!" Shining Armor exclaims with joyous relief, not even waiting to be excused as he rushes out of the royal suite where he was watching the events.

Cadance finally allows herself to smile with relief, but is very surprised to see Celestia is still somber. Naturally, she asks her adoptive aunt why she wasn't celebrating like everypony else.

"Yes, we've won the day, but at what cost?" Celestia contemplates, her horn flickering as the images on the screen change.

As Cadance sees the images flickering by on the screen, she quickly understands why Celestia is still concerned: Guard Captain Gibraltar has suffered a career-ending injury (pushing Shining Armor into the role earlier than Celestia anticipated), the damage across Canterlot and other Equestrian cities by Discord's chaos wasn't undone by the Elements of Harmony unlike in Ponyville, crowds of rightfully-angry ponies are gathering in protest in the streets, and the overall sense that the delicate balance between sections of society had been thrown off by the day's events.

There would be a time for celebration, but it would not be right now. And this feeling would only end up being reinforced in hindsight, where the Changeling infiltrators would now have fertile ground to do Chrysalis' will in conquering Equestria...