Corpse Party: A Glimmer of Chaos

On 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.