Corpse Party: A Glimmer of Chaosby Universal LibrarianChaptersChapter 1 - Working TogetherChapter 2 - Heavenly Host Elementary SchoolChapter - 3 - First ImpressionsChapter 1 - Working TogetherOn the outskirts of Ponyville, in a small room inside the glittering Castle of Friendship, two creatures stood and stared at each other. The first was Starlight Glimmer, a unicorn with a pale purple coat and a purple and green two-tone mane. The other was Discord, a bizarre creature with a serpentine body and a mismatched collection of body parts called a draconequus, though he preferred to be called the Lord of Chaos when referred to formally. Starlight rubbed her hoof and grinned awkwardly, glad nopony else was around to see her discomfort. Except for a certain draconequus, of course. “Really, Starlight, while I appreciate your faith in my abilities, it's going to take me just a teensy bit longer to search every nook and cranny in Equestria and beyond,” Discord said airily. “In fact, I was just finishing up my search of Klugetown when you summoned me. And before you ask, no, I didn’t find any magical gateways, rifts, portals, or other remnants of such, though I did find a poor fellow suffering from Pastellus Coloritis. Quite unpleasant; it probably won’t be long before bits star-” “I-it’s okay, Discord,” Starlight interrupted quickly, holding up a hoof. “We, uh, we don’t need you to search Equestria anymore.” Discord raised an eyebrow, “You’ve found them already? That was quick.” He shrugged and turned away, waving a claw distractedly, “Well, I suppose if you don’t need my help anymore, I’ll just be off. I have a tea party to prepare for.” “We still need your help, now more than ever!” Starlight replied quickly, prompting the spirit to turn his back around allowing him to face her while slowing his walk to a stop midway through a wall. “It turns out our mirror friends were sucked through another portal. One not connected to Equestria.” “One not connected to Equestria?” Discord ran his single fang through his beard absently as he turned around and reassimilated properly, humming in thought, “That can’t be right. While I’ve never actually been to the world through the mirror, I have a policy against going to dimensions that lack magic, I could have sworn that that world and Equestria are only linked to each other.” Starlight nodded, “They are, or, at least, they were, but there was an incident in the human world. The Diviner, the machine we were using to communicate through our portal, overloaded and it picked up a connection to another world. Our friends got sucked through and we haven’t been able to contact them since.” “What do you mean, it picked up a connection?” Discord asked, narrowing his eyes and lowering his head to Starlight’s level. Starlight shuddered at the sudden chill in his voice. “The Diviner overloaded while we were talking through it. We shut down the portal here in Equestria, but the Diviner in the human world somehow opened up a portal to another world.” “You mean you somehow managed to rip open a fresh hole in the border between realities?” Discord hissed. Starlight winced. “Um… yes?” Discord stood as tall as his serpentine body would allow and looked in the exact direction of the Mirror Portal. “Is the new portal still open?” he asked quickly. “No. The Diviner needs a constant supply of Equestrian magic on both sides of the portal to function,” Starlight replied. Discord hummed and folded his mismatched arms into origami cranes while he thought. “Well, I suppose that’s something of a silver lining.” “How can you say that!?” Starlight retorted angrily. “My friends are lost on some alternate world, we have no idea whether they’re safe or not, and so far we have no way of even finding them, and you think that’s a good thing!?” “Ah, ah, ah. That’s not what I said,” Discord retorted, waggling a claw. “I said it’s a good thing the portal isn’t still open. If it was, who knows what sort of things could have slipped back through.” He curled around himself and formed into a donut with sprinkles that he then slithered completely out of while wearing a velociraptor costume. Starlight frowned at him. “What do you mean?” “The only worlds you know of are our one and the human world, but there are far more than that out there: An infinite number of different realms, realities, even whole multiverses all happily existing and minding their own business.” A series of miniature globes, solar systems and bizarre symbols sparked into life around Discord as he spoke while the light in the room dimmed enough so the created objects shone and sparkled brilliantly, “and trust me when I say that some of them are far, far more dangerous than anything you’ll find in the human world. A few contain beings even I would tread carefully around.” Starlight shivered involuntarily when Discord said that in one of the most serious voices she’d ever heard him use. She didn’t even want to imagine a creature that could make Discord wary. On the other hoof, the thought of her human friends being trapped in a world with a monstrosity like that was more than enough to harden her resolve, “I can’t just abandon my friends, no matter how dangerous it is,” she stomped a hoof in resolution. “I wasn’t suggesting you should,” Discord replied. “Even if I did, I highly doubt you would listen. However, I would suggest, quite strongly, that you and our little Princess Purple Smart take every precaution you can possibly think of when you try and open up the portal again. You should probably get Starswirl to take a look as well, he was always fond of that sort of thing.” Starlight nodded, “I’ve already sent him a message. In the meantime, we were hoping that you would be willing to help us look for the world they’ve been sent to.” “What!?” Discord cried, poofing his little floating globes and things back out of existence, “Did you not hear me when I said there are infinite realities out there?” He reached and grabbed her ears, with a tug several ears of corn sprouted from the tips. “It could take eons for me to find your friends by just searching randomly!” Starlight flipped her ears and turned her head freeing herself from the magical prop while she levitated a sheet of parchment out of her saddlebags, “What if I could show you the magical signature of the world they were sent to?” Discord grabbed the parchment, pulling a pair of pince-nez glasses out of thin air and putting them on with a comical squeak sound, “Hmmm, this should narrow it down slightly,” he said puffing on a corncob pipe he’d made from one of the corns from Starlight’s ear. Starlight’s shoulders slumped, “Only slightly?” Discord nodded, “Sadly, yes. Unless I’ve been to a world before, it’s extremely difficult for me to open a direct portal to it. It’s just as likely that I’ll end up in a completely random reality full of sapient toenail clippers.” He shook his head and tossed away the glasses, “Having the signature should help,” he spat the pipe out and it flew away on its own, “but even then it just makes it more likely that I’ll open a portal to a reality that’s only roughly in the same area, metaphysically speaking.” Starlight looked up at him hopefully, “Will you at least try? Please?” She adopted the cutest look she could while asking. “Well I would but…” Discord squirmed uncomfortably under the little pony’s pleading look. Finally he sighed, “Oh… fine.” He pinched two fingers together on the parchment and pulled away a wad of thick black sludge. He span it around his hand a few times then flicked it away, only for it to splat onto an invisible surface apparently hanging in empty air. “You should probably stand back,” Discord waited for Starlight to heed his warning, then ran a claw through the hovering sludge, tearing a hole through the fabric of realities. Both Starlight and Discord recoiled as a palpable aura of hatred and suffering poured out of the gap. Peering through the tear, the pair could see a large building build solidly of wood. Panelled glass windows lined the walls, with a small archway forming the entrance. Above the arch was a sign covered in writing, though not in any language that Starlight recognised, and above that again was a large clock. Roiling black clouds could barely be seen above the building. Starlight tried not to retch as the sickening aura intensified, “What… urk… what is that?” she dry heaved. “Dark magic,” Discord replied with an uncharacteristically bleak expression, “of a variety far more terrible than anything you will ever find in Equestria.” Starlight fought back a terrified shudder, “Is… is that where my friends are?” Discord shook head, “I don’t know. For all we know the magical signature you showed me could be one of dozens, or even hundreds that exist within the reality your friends ended up in. I’ll have to go through and search the area thoroughly before I can be certain, one way or the other.” A shrill scream suddenly rang out from inside the building. The two stared fearfully for several seconds, but no further sounds were forthcoming. “I don’t know about you, but I sincerely hope your friends are not in this particular reality,” Discord said slowly. Coming to a decision, Starlight pulled a book out of her saddlebags, a sibling to those that Twilight and Sunset shared, and wrote a lengthy note in it while Discord watched the world beyond. “I don’t want to picture finding any version of Fluttershy in a place like this.” Starlight looked up at him, “I’m coming with you.” “You most certainly are not!” Discord spluttered. “I know how to handle myself, and there is no way I’m letting a friend go to such a dangerous place all alone,” Starlight said firmly. A short buzz from the book grabbed her attention and she nodded grimly when she opened and read from it, “That was from Twilight, she says she’s happy for me to go with you. She and Starswirl should be able to reconfigure the Diviner between them.” Discord rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I… w-well that is… um… I mean, thank you, Starlight,” he said gratefully. “Don’t mention it,” Starlight replied. “One quick question though,” she pointed a hoof through the tear, “can you read that sign?” “Tenjin Shougakkou,” Discord said after a quick look, “it roughly translates as ‘Heavenly Host Elementary School’.” Starlight pawed the ground nervously. Her voice quavered as she spoke, betraying her nerves, “Well, I guess it can’t be that bad. I mean, how dangerous can a school be?” “I suppose we’ll soon find out,” Discord muttered darkly, knowing better than she the true horrors the multiverse held. “Are you sure you want to do this?” “Absolutely,” Starlight replied with far more bravado than she felt. “Come on, let’s go.” Side by side, the two strode through the rippling tear in reality. Chapter 2 - Heavenly Host Elementary SchoolStarlight slipped and fell the moment she stepped through the tear in reality, getting a faceful of dirt. As she tried to push herself upright she realized that her forelegs had been replaced with arms and hands. A quick check revealed that her entire body had been transformed from a pony to a human. "Huh, this must be another human world." Starlight got to her feet and dusted herself off, shivering slightly. Unlike the last time she had gone through a portal to a human world, she was currently wearing a white blouse and grey skirt with a red tie. "What the- this can't be right!" Discord spat. Glancing around, Starlight saw that the draconequus was now in a mostly human form too; his body was tall and lanky, and he was wearing a mismatched patchwork suit. Oddly enough, he still had his horns on top of his head. "What's wrong?" Discord inspected his clothes with an irritated air. "We should have arrived in our natural forms, or unnatural form in my case, not as these bipedal oddities." He snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. After several more fruitless tries he looked up at the school rising ahead of them warily. "Something is suppressing my magic." Starlight grimaced, suddenly forcefully reminded of the magic-suppressing throne once possessed by Queen Chrysalis. "Um, do you think maybe we should…" She glanced back at the opening in reality, only to realize that it had already closed up and vanished. "Okay, never mind. Looks like it's just the two of us." Starlight squared her shoulders and looked up at the school building ahead of them, trying to project more confidence than she felt. "Well, we've managed before without our magic, we can do it again." "Easier said than done," Discord muttered, but he rolled his shoulders and straightened his suit before sighing heavily. "Well, since we're here we might as well take a look around." He snapped his fingers and a small light bulb popped into existence above his hand, then he waved it away in a puff of glitter. "I still have some of my powers, at least. Hopefully we can find whatever is dampening my magic quickly, so I can break it. Oh, and this probably goes without saying, but let's try not to get separated, shall we?" "Good idea," Starlight replied fervently. The school loomed above the two as they walked together towards it. Starlight couldn't suppress a shudder as they pushed open the front doors with a loud creak. The reception area inside was dark. Several sets of lockers, presumably for students, filled the room. Most of them were in a severe state of disrepair. "This looks inviting," Starlight muttered sarcastically. "I'd keep the noise to a minimum if I were you," Discord said quietly. "I don't know who's in charge in this place, but you can bet that they're no friendlier than Chrysalis. We'd best try not to get spotted." "Er, right," Starlight replied sheepishly. Discord rolled his eyes and walked past the lockers, gesturing for her to keep up. The place looked like it had been abandoned for decades. The floorboards were chipped and creaky, what little paint remained on the walls was pale and flaking, and everything was coated in a thick layer of dust. Corridors led off to the left and right, and a winding set of wooden stairs led up to the next floor. Starlight bit her lip and tapped Discord on the shoulder. "Which way?" She whispered. The pensive expression on Discord's face didn't reassure her in the slightest. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "This school is clearly Japanese, at a guess I'd say 1950's, but we're on a spiritual plane, not a physical one, so it's hard to say." "What do you mean? Is this place made of magic?" Starlight asked. "Not any magic that you would recognise," Discord replied. "It's actually closer to my magic than typical Equestrian fare. The very structure of the building is in constant flux around us." He looked around, humming thoughtfully, then shrugged and pointed up the stairs. "We may as well try upstairs. I get the feeling there's something up there, at least." Starlight bit her lip and followed after Discord, silently cursing every time a stair creaked loudly beneath one of them. The next floor was much the same as the last, with a deteriorated corridor stretching away into the shadows. Sliding doors made out of wood and paper lined the corridor. Little signs above the doors had numbers on them, presumably class numbers. Starlight could see more of the unusual writing scrawled on one of the walls in tiny letters. "What does that say?" "It's just graffiti," Discord replied. "Here, see for yourself." He poked Starlight's forehead, and a wave of static made her brain feel fuzzy for a few seconds before clearing just as suddenly. "What the heck did you do to me?!" She snapped. Discord scoffed indignantly. "I gave you a native's understanding of the local language. You're welcome." "You… what?" Starlight looked back at the writing and realized with a jolt that she could now understand it. Her incredulity faded when she saw that the writing was indeed just a childish scrawl saying 'Mizuki smells'. "Whoa. Um, thanks." "As I said, you're welcome," Discord replied with just a hint of irritation. He scowled as he turned his attention back to the corridor. "Now, let's see if we can figure out what we're looking for, and how to find it." Starlight glanced around warily. "I get the feeling that's going to be easier said than done." With a sigh, she stepped over to the nearest door. "I guess we may as well start by exploring the classrooms." "Yes, but be careful," Discord warned. Starlight just nodded and gently slid the door open. The classroom was fairly standard; just rows of small chairs and wooden desks all facing a blackboard. It looked like no-one had been inside in decades. Deciding that she may as well take a closer look, Starlight crept inside, looking around warily. She had barely taken a few steps when a loud swish and a thud made her whip around in shock. The door had tried to slide shut on its own. Discord had managed to grab it with inches to spare, and was straining to haul it back open, but some invisible force was resisting his efforts. Before Starlight could react, her stomach lurched as the floor beneath her feet suddenly gave way with a horrific crunching sound, pitching her into the yawning darkness below. Chapter - 3 - First ImpressionsDiscord gritted his teeth as he struggled to force the door open. Both magical and physical strength were seemingly useless, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Straining against the impossible, he was about to blast a hole through the door when whatever was holding it closed suddenly disappeared and it slammed open. Almost thrown off-balance by the sudden lack of resistance, Discord recovered quickly and darted into the room. “Starlight?!” The classroom beyond was empty. Starlight was nowhere to be seen, and there weren’t even any convenient holes in the walls or floor that would indicate where she vanished. Discord searched under the teacher’s desk and in the cupboards behind it, just in case. Starlight was gone. “Horseapples,” Discord muttered. He had assumed that the malevolent will inhabiting this realm was ignorant to their presence, or at least was a passive observer, but that clearly wasn’t the case. Just in case, Discord tried summoning a lantern to illuminate hidden things, gave himself a bloodhound’s nose to sniff out secret magical trails, then pulled headphones and a sonar speaker out of an old desk to brute-force search without regard for what else might be listening, but nothing worked. “Darn, she must be on an alternate plane of existence within this reality. This complicates things.” As he pondered his next move, Discord heard a floorboard creak out in the corridor. He froze, reaching out with every sense while pretending not to have heard anything, and scowled as he sensed someone creeping towards the door. Not Starlight, but someone else. “I can hear you out there, you know?” He called out in Japanese. Someone squealed softly and opened the door. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to-” Discord turned around just as a teenage girl, no older than sixteen, stepped into the room. She was clearly a Japanese schoolgirl, at least according to the blue-and-tan uniform she was wearing, and had short brown hair with a ponytail on top of her head held up by a bobble with little pink spheres, along with two orange barrettes holding her bangs back. The girl froze when she saw Discord, her eyes widening at the sight of his horns, but before she could scream he whipped out a tv remote and pressed the mute button. “It’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you,” Discord said quickly. The girl didn’t take a blind bit of notice, apparently more terrified of the fact that she couldn’t make any noise than of the draconequus himself. “Look, it’s alright. My name is Discord. Just take a deep breath, relax, and try not to freak out. What’s your name?” The girl stared at him fearfully as he pressed unmuted her. “M-Mayu,” she stammered quietly. “Suzumoto Mayu.” “Mayu-san,” Discord repeated, hoping the mix of personal name and honorific would put her more at ease. “What is this place? Do you know where we are?” The girl stared at him fearfully, and for a moment Discord thought that he might have to fiddle with her mind a little to get anything else out of her, but finally she answered, “I-I don’t know. We were just messing around after school, then we did that weird little ritual a-and now I’m here and I don’t know where anyone else is.” Discord bit back a sigh. It seemed to be a universal truth across realities that teenagers performing any kind of ritual or ceremony were going to get themselves into trouble, especially if the teenagers happened to be Japanese or from the USA. “What ritual?” “Sachiko Ever After.” Mayu pulled a tiny scrap of paper out of her pocket and held it out. “I-it’s supposed to be just a little spell to make sure me and my friends stay friends forever. Did we do it wrong? Is that why we’re here?” The little paper scrap did have some small whiff of magic about it, but it wasn’t nearly as dark or malevolent as the surrounding area. Whatever it was, it alone wasn’t powerful or dangerous enough to be related to Starlight’s disappearance. Seeing that the girl was anxiously awaiting his reply, Discord shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea. to tell the truth, I arrived here with a friend only a few minutes ago, but it seems that we’ve been separated. Why don’t we work together? Help me find my friend, and I’ll help you find a way home.” “Deal!” The girl eagerly held her hand out, much to Discord’s surprise. Her earlier fear had apparently evaporated entirely. He bemusedly shook her hand, after which she smiled and offered him a curt nod. “Okay, how do we find your friend?” Discord sighed and shook his head. “I’m not sure. I think we’re going to have to take a look around and see what we can find.” Starlight groaned and curled up on the cold floor. She had no idea just how far she had fallen, but she didn’t think anything was broken. Raising her head, Starlight saw that she was in another dingy old classroom, though the windows in this one were so filthy and damaged that barely any light got through at all. She got up and dusted herself off, grumbling to herself, only to realize that the hole she had fallen through had mysteriously disappeared. “Well that can’t be good.” Starlight instinctively tried to teleport back upstairs, remembering a moment too late that she didn’t have magic in her human form. “Right, duh. Okay, Plan B.” Looking around, she saw that there were two doors in the room. One was blocked by a pile of smashed-up desks and chairs, but the other was mercifully clear. Outside was another dingy corridor. Starlight glanced left and right, trying to figure out which way to go. Getting back upstairs to Discord was the goal, naturally, but the fall had screwed up her sense of direction. As she pondered, Starlight spotted a girls’ restroom a short way to the left. She didn’t need to go, but she figured it would be better to empty her bladder now rather than end up needing to pee right as she encountered whatever evil Discord had sensed. “I hope you guys have toilet pap- what the?” The restroom door only opened halfway before it thudded into something. “Please tell me I didn’t just concuss a little filly.” Starlight poked her head through the gap, looking down to see what she had hit, then froze when she realized what it was. The reeking pile of offal had probably been human once, as evidenced by the ragged clothes that it was still wearing, but it was so ravaged and decayed that it was impossible to tell anything else about who it had been. Starlight retched and staggered back from the door as her stomach rebelled against the sight. She didn’t want to believe her eyes, but with the door open the stench of blood and rot filled the corridor and wouldn’t leave her alone. As Starlight slumped against the wall opposite the restroom, she heard a voice call out curiously, “What are you?”
Chapter 1 - Working TogetherOn the outskirts of Ponyville, in a small room inside the glittering Castle of Friendship, two creatures stood and stared at each other. The first was Starlight Glimmer, a unicorn with a pale purple coat and a purple and green two-tone mane. The other was Discord, a bizarre creature with a serpentine body and a mismatched collection of body parts called a draconequus, though he preferred to be called the Lord of Chaos when referred to formally. Starlight rubbed her hoof and grinned awkwardly, glad nopony else was around to see her discomfort. Except for a certain draconequus, of course. “Really, Starlight, while I appreciate your faith in my abilities, it's going to take me just a teensy bit longer to search every nook and cranny in Equestria and beyond,” Discord said airily. “In fact, I was just finishing up my search of Klugetown when you summoned me. And before you ask, no, I didn’t find any magical gateways, rifts, portals, or other remnants of such, though I did find a poor fellow suffering from Pastellus Coloritis. Quite unpleasant; it probably won’t be long before bits star-” “I-it’s okay, Discord,” Starlight interrupted quickly, holding up a hoof. “We, uh, we don’t need you to search Equestria anymore.” Discord raised an eyebrow, “You’ve found them already? That was quick.” He shrugged and turned away, waving a claw distractedly, “Well, I suppose if you don’t need my help anymore, I’ll just be off. I have a tea party to prepare for.” “We still need your help, now more than ever!” Starlight replied quickly, prompting the spirit to turn his back around allowing him to face her while slowing his walk to a stop midway through a wall. “It turns out our mirror friends were sucked through another portal. One not connected to Equestria.” “One not connected to Equestria?” Discord ran his single fang through his beard absently as he turned around and reassimilated properly, humming in thought, “That can’t be right. While I’ve never actually been to the world through the mirror, I have a policy against going to dimensions that lack magic, I could have sworn that that world and Equestria are only linked to each other.” Starlight nodded, “They are, or, at least, they were, but there was an incident in the human world. The Diviner, the machine we were using to communicate through our portal, overloaded and it picked up a connection to another world. Our friends got sucked through and we haven’t been able to contact them since.” “What do you mean, it picked up a connection?” Discord asked, narrowing his eyes and lowering his head to Starlight’s level. Starlight shuddered at the sudden chill in his voice. “The Diviner overloaded while we were talking through it. We shut down the portal here in Equestria, but the Diviner in the human world somehow opened up a portal to another world.” “You mean you somehow managed to rip open a fresh hole in the border between realities?” Discord hissed. Starlight winced. “Um… yes?” Discord stood as tall as his serpentine body would allow and looked in the exact direction of the Mirror Portal. “Is the new portal still open?” he asked quickly. “No. The Diviner needs a constant supply of Equestrian magic on both sides of the portal to function,” Starlight replied. Discord hummed and folded his mismatched arms into origami cranes while he thought. “Well, I suppose that’s something of a silver lining.” “How can you say that!?” Starlight retorted angrily. “My friends are lost on some alternate world, we have no idea whether they’re safe or not, and so far we have no way of even finding them, and you think that’s a good thing!?” “Ah, ah, ah. That’s not what I said,” Discord retorted, waggling a claw. “I said it’s a good thing the portal isn’t still open. If it was, who knows what sort of things could have slipped back through.” He curled around himself and formed into a donut with sprinkles that he then slithered completely out of while wearing a velociraptor costume. Starlight frowned at him. “What do you mean?” “The only worlds you know of are our one and the human world, but there are far more than that out there: An infinite number of different realms, realities, even whole multiverses all happily existing and minding their own business.” A series of miniature globes, solar systems and bizarre symbols sparked into life around Discord as he spoke while the light in the room dimmed enough so the created objects shone and sparkled brilliantly, “and trust me when I say that some of them are far, far more dangerous than anything you’ll find in the human world. A few contain beings even I would tread carefully around.” Starlight shivered involuntarily when Discord said that in one of the most serious voices she’d ever heard him use. She didn’t even want to imagine a creature that could make Discord wary. On the other hoof, the thought of her human friends being trapped in a world with a monstrosity like that was more than enough to harden her resolve, “I can’t just abandon my friends, no matter how dangerous it is,” she stomped a hoof in resolution. “I wasn’t suggesting you should,” Discord replied. “Even if I did, I highly doubt you would listen. However, I would suggest, quite strongly, that you and our little Princess Purple Smart take every precaution you can possibly think of when you try and open up the portal again. You should probably get Starswirl to take a look as well, he was always fond of that sort of thing.” Starlight nodded, “I’ve already sent him a message. In the meantime, we were hoping that you would be willing to help us look for the world they’ve been sent to.” “What!?” Discord cried, poofing his little floating globes and things back out of existence, “Did you not hear me when I said there are infinite realities out there?” He reached and grabbed her ears, with a tug several ears of corn sprouted from the tips. “It could take eons for me to find your friends by just searching randomly!” Starlight flipped her ears and turned her head freeing herself from the magical prop while she levitated a sheet of parchment out of her saddlebags, “What if I could show you the magical signature of the world they were sent to?” Discord grabbed the parchment, pulling a pair of pince-nez glasses out of thin air and putting them on with a comical squeak sound, “Hmmm, this should narrow it down slightly,” he said puffing on a corncob pipe he’d made from one of the corns from Starlight’s ear. Starlight’s shoulders slumped, “Only slightly?” Discord nodded, “Sadly, yes. Unless I’ve been to a world before, it’s extremely difficult for me to open a direct portal to it. It’s just as likely that I’ll end up in a completely random reality full of sapient toenail clippers.” He shook his head and tossed away the glasses, “Having the signature should help,” he spat the pipe out and it flew away on its own, “but even then it just makes it more likely that I’ll open a portal to a reality that’s only roughly in the same area, metaphysically speaking.” Starlight looked up at him hopefully, “Will you at least try? Please?” She adopted the cutest look she could while asking. “Well I would but…” Discord squirmed uncomfortably under the little pony’s pleading look. Finally he sighed, “Oh… fine.” He pinched two fingers together on the parchment and pulled away a wad of thick black sludge. He span it around his hand a few times then flicked it away, only for it to splat onto an invisible surface apparently hanging in empty air. “You should probably stand back,” Discord waited for Starlight to heed his warning, then ran a claw through the hovering sludge, tearing a hole through the fabric of realities. Both Starlight and Discord recoiled as a palpable aura of hatred and suffering poured out of the gap. Peering through the tear, the pair could see a large building build solidly of wood. Panelled glass windows lined the walls, with a small archway forming the entrance. Above the arch was a sign covered in writing, though not in any language that Starlight recognised, and above that again was a large clock. Roiling black clouds could barely be seen above the building. Starlight tried not to retch as the sickening aura intensified, “What… urk… what is that?” she dry heaved. “Dark magic,” Discord replied with an uncharacteristically bleak expression, “of a variety far more terrible than anything you will ever find in Equestria.” Starlight fought back a terrified shudder, “Is… is that where my friends are?” Discord shook head, “I don’t know. For all we know the magical signature you showed me could be one of dozens, or even hundreds that exist within the reality your friends ended up in. I’ll have to go through and search the area thoroughly before I can be certain, one way or the other.” A shrill scream suddenly rang out from inside the building. The two stared fearfully for several seconds, but no further sounds were forthcoming. “I don’t know about you, but I sincerely hope your friends are not in this particular reality,” Discord said slowly. Coming to a decision, Starlight pulled a book out of her saddlebags, a sibling to those that Twilight and Sunset shared, and wrote a lengthy note in it while Discord watched the world beyond. “I don’t want to picture finding any version of Fluttershy in a place like this.” Starlight looked up at him, “I’m coming with you.” “You most certainly are not!” Discord spluttered. “I know how to handle myself, and there is no way I’m letting a friend go to such a dangerous place all alone,” Starlight said firmly. A short buzz from the book grabbed her attention and she nodded grimly when she opened and read from it, “That was from Twilight, she says she’s happy for me to go with you. She and Starswirl should be able to reconfigure the Diviner between them.” Discord rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I… w-well that is… um… I mean, thank you, Starlight,” he said gratefully. “Don’t mention it,” Starlight replied. “One quick question though,” she pointed a hoof through the tear, “can you read that sign?” “Tenjin Shougakkou,” Discord said after a quick look, “it roughly translates as ‘Heavenly Host Elementary School’.” Starlight pawed the ground nervously. Her voice quavered as she spoke, betraying her nerves, “Well, I guess it can’t be that bad. I mean, how dangerous can a school be?” “I suppose we’ll soon find out,” Discord muttered darkly, knowing better than she the true horrors the multiverse held. “Are you sure you want to do this?” “Absolutely,” Starlight replied with far more bravado than she felt. “Come on, let’s go.” Side by side, the two strode through the rippling tear in reality.
Chapter 2 - Heavenly Host Elementary SchoolStarlight slipped and fell the moment she stepped through the tear in reality, getting a faceful of dirt. As she tried to push herself upright she realized that her forelegs had been replaced with arms and hands. A quick check revealed that her entire body had been transformed from a pony to a human. "Huh, this must be another human world." Starlight got to her feet and dusted herself off, shivering slightly. Unlike the last time she had gone through a portal to a human world, she was currently wearing a white blouse and grey skirt with a red tie. "What the- this can't be right!" Discord spat. Glancing around, Starlight saw that the draconequus was now in a mostly human form too; his body was tall and lanky, and he was wearing a mismatched patchwork suit. Oddly enough, he still had his horns on top of his head. "What's wrong?" Discord inspected his clothes with an irritated air. "We should have arrived in our natural forms, or unnatural form in my case, not as these bipedal oddities." He snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. After several more fruitless tries he looked up at the school rising ahead of them warily. "Something is suppressing my magic." Starlight grimaced, suddenly forcefully reminded of the magic-suppressing throne once possessed by Queen Chrysalis. "Um, do you think maybe we should…" She glanced back at the opening in reality, only to realize that it had already closed up and vanished. "Okay, never mind. Looks like it's just the two of us." Starlight squared her shoulders and looked up at the school building ahead of them, trying to project more confidence than she felt. "Well, we've managed before without our magic, we can do it again." "Easier said than done," Discord muttered, but he rolled his shoulders and straightened his suit before sighing heavily. "Well, since we're here we might as well take a look around." He snapped his fingers and a small light bulb popped into existence above his hand, then he waved it away in a puff of glitter. "I still have some of my powers, at least. Hopefully we can find whatever is dampening my magic quickly, so I can break it. Oh, and this probably goes without saying, but let's try not to get separated, shall we?" "Good idea," Starlight replied fervently. The school loomed above the two as they walked together towards it. Starlight couldn't suppress a shudder as they pushed open the front doors with a loud creak. The reception area inside was dark. Several sets of lockers, presumably for students, filled the room. Most of them were in a severe state of disrepair. "This looks inviting," Starlight muttered sarcastically. "I'd keep the noise to a minimum if I were you," Discord said quietly. "I don't know who's in charge in this place, but you can bet that they're no friendlier than Chrysalis. We'd best try not to get spotted." "Er, right," Starlight replied sheepishly. Discord rolled his eyes and walked past the lockers, gesturing for her to keep up. The place looked like it had been abandoned for decades. The floorboards were chipped and creaky, what little paint remained on the walls was pale and flaking, and everything was coated in a thick layer of dust. Corridors led off to the left and right, and a winding set of wooden stairs led up to the next floor. Starlight bit her lip and tapped Discord on the shoulder. "Which way?" She whispered. The pensive expression on Discord's face didn't reassure her in the slightest. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "This school is clearly Japanese, at a guess I'd say 1950's, but we're on a spiritual plane, not a physical one, so it's hard to say." "What do you mean? Is this place made of magic?" Starlight asked. "Not any magic that you would recognise," Discord replied. "It's actually closer to my magic than typical Equestrian fare. The very structure of the building is in constant flux around us." He looked around, humming thoughtfully, then shrugged and pointed up the stairs. "We may as well try upstairs. I get the feeling there's something up there, at least." Starlight bit her lip and followed after Discord, silently cursing every time a stair creaked loudly beneath one of them. The next floor was much the same as the last, with a deteriorated corridor stretching away into the shadows. Sliding doors made out of wood and paper lined the corridor. Little signs above the doors had numbers on them, presumably class numbers. Starlight could see more of the unusual writing scrawled on one of the walls in tiny letters. "What does that say?" "It's just graffiti," Discord replied. "Here, see for yourself." He poked Starlight's forehead, and a wave of static made her brain feel fuzzy for a few seconds before clearing just as suddenly. "What the heck did you do to me?!" She snapped. Discord scoffed indignantly. "I gave you a native's understanding of the local language. You're welcome." "You… what?" Starlight looked back at the writing and realized with a jolt that she could now understand it. Her incredulity faded when she saw that the writing was indeed just a childish scrawl saying 'Mizuki smells'. "Whoa. Um, thanks." "As I said, you're welcome," Discord replied with just a hint of irritation. He scowled as he turned his attention back to the corridor. "Now, let's see if we can figure out what we're looking for, and how to find it." Starlight glanced around warily. "I get the feeling that's going to be easier said than done." With a sigh, she stepped over to the nearest door. "I guess we may as well start by exploring the classrooms." "Yes, but be careful," Discord warned. Starlight just nodded and gently slid the door open. The classroom was fairly standard; just rows of small chairs and wooden desks all facing a blackboard. It looked like no-one had been inside in decades. Deciding that she may as well take a closer look, Starlight crept inside, looking around warily. She had barely taken a few steps when a loud swish and a thud made her whip around in shock. The door had tried to slide shut on its own. Discord had managed to grab it with inches to spare, and was straining to haul it back open, but some invisible force was resisting his efforts. Before Starlight could react, her stomach lurched as the floor beneath her feet suddenly gave way with a horrific crunching sound, pitching her into the yawning darkness below.
Chapter - 3 - First ImpressionsDiscord gritted his teeth as he struggled to force the door open. Both magical and physical strength were seemingly useless, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Straining against the impossible, he was about to blast a hole through the door when whatever was holding it closed suddenly disappeared and it slammed open. Almost thrown off-balance by the sudden lack of resistance, Discord recovered quickly and darted into the room. “Starlight?!” The classroom beyond was empty. Starlight was nowhere to be seen, and there weren’t even any convenient holes in the walls or floor that would indicate where she vanished. Discord searched under the teacher’s desk and in the cupboards behind it, just in case. Starlight was gone. “Horseapples,” Discord muttered. He had assumed that the malevolent will inhabiting this realm was ignorant to their presence, or at least was a passive observer, but that clearly wasn’t the case. Just in case, Discord tried summoning a lantern to illuminate hidden things, gave himself a bloodhound’s nose to sniff out secret magical trails, then pulled headphones and a sonar speaker out of an old desk to brute-force search without regard for what else might be listening, but nothing worked. “Darn, she must be on an alternate plane of existence within this reality. This complicates things.” As he pondered his next move, Discord heard a floorboard creak out in the corridor. He froze, reaching out with every sense while pretending not to have heard anything, and scowled as he sensed someone creeping towards the door. Not Starlight, but someone else. “I can hear you out there, you know?” He called out in Japanese. Someone squealed softly and opened the door. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to-” Discord turned around just as a teenage girl, no older than sixteen, stepped into the room. She was clearly a Japanese schoolgirl, at least according to the blue-and-tan uniform she was wearing, and had short brown hair with a ponytail on top of her head held up by a bobble with little pink spheres, along with two orange barrettes holding her bangs back. The girl froze when she saw Discord, her eyes widening at the sight of his horns, but before she could scream he whipped out a tv remote and pressed the mute button. “It’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you,” Discord said quickly. The girl didn’t take a blind bit of notice, apparently more terrified of the fact that she couldn’t make any noise than of the draconequus himself. “Look, it’s alright. My name is Discord. Just take a deep breath, relax, and try not to freak out. What’s your name?” The girl stared at him fearfully as he pressed unmuted her. “M-Mayu,” she stammered quietly. “Suzumoto Mayu.” “Mayu-san,” Discord repeated, hoping the mix of personal name and honorific would put her more at ease. “What is this place? Do you know where we are?” The girl stared at him fearfully, and for a moment Discord thought that he might have to fiddle with her mind a little to get anything else out of her, but finally she answered, “I-I don’t know. We were just messing around after school, then we did that weird little ritual a-and now I’m here and I don’t know where anyone else is.” Discord bit back a sigh. It seemed to be a universal truth across realities that teenagers performing any kind of ritual or ceremony were going to get themselves into trouble, especially if the teenagers happened to be Japanese or from the USA. “What ritual?” “Sachiko Ever After.” Mayu pulled a tiny scrap of paper out of her pocket and held it out. “I-it’s supposed to be just a little spell to make sure me and my friends stay friends forever. Did we do it wrong? Is that why we’re here?” The little paper scrap did have some small whiff of magic about it, but it wasn’t nearly as dark or malevolent as the surrounding area. Whatever it was, it alone wasn’t powerful or dangerous enough to be related to Starlight’s disappearance. Seeing that the girl was anxiously awaiting his reply, Discord shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea. to tell the truth, I arrived here with a friend only a few minutes ago, but it seems that we’ve been separated. Why don’t we work together? Help me find my friend, and I’ll help you find a way home.” “Deal!” The girl eagerly held her hand out, much to Discord’s surprise. Her earlier fear had apparently evaporated entirely. He bemusedly shook her hand, after which she smiled and offered him a curt nod. “Okay, how do we find your friend?” Discord sighed and shook his head. “I’m not sure. I think we’re going to have to take a look around and see what we can find.” Starlight groaned and curled up on the cold floor. She had no idea just how far she had fallen, but she didn’t think anything was broken. Raising her head, Starlight saw that she was in another dingy old classroom, though the windows in this one were so filthy and damaged that barely any light got through at all. She got up and dusted herself off, grumbling to herself, only to realize that the hole she had fallen through had mysteriously disappeared. “Well that can’t be good.” Starlight instinctively tried to teleport back upstairs, remembering a moment too late that she didn’t have magic in her human form. “Right, duh. Okay, Plan B.” Looking around, she saw that there were two doors in the room. One was blocked by a pile of smashed-up desks and chairs, but the other was mercifully clear. Outside was another dingy corridor. Starlight glanced left and right, trying to figure out which way to go. Getting back upstairs to Discord was the goal, naturally, but the fall had screwed up her sense of direction. As she pondered, Starlight spotted a girls’ restroom a short way to the left. She didn’t need to go, but she figured it would be better to empty her bladder now rather than end up needing to pee right as she encountered whatever evil Discord had sensed. “I hope you guys have toilet pap- what the?” The restroom door only opened halfway before it thudded into something. “Please tell me I didn’t just concuss a little filly.” Starlight poked her head through the gap, looking down to see what she had hit, then froze when she realized what it was. The reeking pile of offal had probably been human once, as evidenced by the ragged clothes that it was still wearing, but it was so ravaged and decayed that it was impossible to tell anything else about who it had been. Starlight retched and staggered back from the door as her stomach rebelled against the sight. She didn’t want to believe her eyes, but with the door open the stench of blood and rot filled the corridor and wouldn’t leave her alone. As Starlight slumped against the wall opposite the restroom, she heard a voice call out curiously, “What are you?”
