Chapter 8:

The air vibrated under the force of flapping wings as Midnight and Moonlight soon found themselves in front of a cottage. As the blue pegasus and purple thestral softly landed on the ground, the two of them could hear the sound of critters playing around in the fields.

“This place feels nice. No wonder why Fluttershy likes being here.” Midnight commented, taking in all the scenery. Moonlight softly nodded as she noticed a pair of bunnies playing a small game of tag.

“It is. We should come here one day and cuddle next to each other to watch the sunset.” The thestral said, letting out a light sigh at the thought of Midnight laying next to her. The stallion was too innocent now, but she hoped the day would come where he’d no longer call her a friend, but as a marefriend. Her heart fluttered. It all was just fantasy now, but still firmly held the dream that it would occur.

Of course, her smile wavered a bit when she saw Midnight blink, a common trait for the pegasus whenever he got confused.

“Uhm… alright? Hmm… why didn’t we contact Shining Armor anyway? Maybe Discord pits us against monsters from Tartarus and Shining’s presence could’ve been very useful!” Midnight theorized as he began to go over the possibilities. Moonlight couldn’t help but laugh.

“No silly. Discord’s been reformed, and even if he was a villain, it isn’t his style to do that. The reason why I didn’t ask Shining to come is that he would’ve most likely prevented us from leaving, but don’t worry, he’ll be happy with us once we show our progress. I have an idea of what Discord might end up doing, so what you should do is to remain as innocent as possible and act like yourself. ” The thestral mare said, ruffling the pegasus’s mane, but her sentence caused him to become confused as they walked towards the door.

“By the way, what do you mean by innocent? I’ve been hearing it constantly and it’s confused me. Innocent about what?” The stallion asked as Moonlight began to knock on the door.

“If all things go well, you’ll find out by the end of this month, alright Midnight? Though I will try to help you before hoof. But we have a mission to do right now.” The thestral mare stated, backing away as the door began to open, revealing a butterscotch pegasus, the mare hiding behind her pink mane.

“Uhm… Hi… I… I didn’t expect to see any visitors today. Would you two like some tea? Today was Discord’s weekly tea party, but I don’t think he would mind some extra ponies.” The mare said, beckoning them to enter. The pair of guards nodded at each other before they proceeded to enter the cottage. The two of them suddenly paused as they saw a creature that looked like an amalgamation of several others. It had a lion’s paw, a falcon’s claw, a serpent-like body, a bat wing, a bird wing, and so many other things that could only be described as pure, utter...

“Chaos.”

Moonlight suddenly let out a squeal as her wings instantly jerked up, causing her to fly straight into the ceiling and bang her head after hearing somebody use a megaphone next to her ear. Midnight simply flinched and took a slight backstep, but otherwise seemed fine. Immediately, the female pegasus stared directly at the chaotic creature with a disapproving look. The figure’s eyes immediately began to dart around before he pointed a claw towards himself.

“Me? Oh c’mon Fluttershy. You know that this party is meant for only both of us, not some third and fourth wheel party.” The discordant creature said, pouting as he twirled his hand, and suddenly Moonlight began to feel dizzy as she saw a doll version of herself being spun around in the dizzitron alongside a plush version of Midnight. The stallion however remained firm on the ground, though the wind was picking up around him.

“Oh, buck I think I’m going to throw up.” The thestral stated as her face turned green. She held a hoof to her mouth as her reflexive gap began to activate before she suddenly began to dump all of her morning’s contents into a void that spontaneously appeared beneath her. The butterscotch mare intensified her disapproving look, and the draconequus sighed.

“Fine. They can stay. I guess she now needs to eat after what she just did.” The chaotic creature said as he summoned two seemingly normal chairs. Upon the two trying to sit down though, Moonlight suddenly let out an ‘oof’ as she fell through the chair, but Midnight managed to suspend himself with his wings. The figure simply narrowed his eyes at the colt, who stared back.

“Discord please, calm yourself down,” Fluttershy said as she stared at the creature, who continued to look at the young colt, but this time with interest. His gaze turned to Moonlight and his eyes narrowed once again.

“Hmm… that’s strange. You two weren’t supposed to appear until the last week of November.” Discord stated, before shrugging and placing the two back on the chairs, which held this time. “Well welcome aboard I guess. My name is Discord, the Lord of Chaos, and Fluttershy’s best friend! Who are you two?” The discordant creature said, and Midnight blinked when he saw how the being’s paw/claw had detached itself from his arms and was now shaking their hooves.

“Uhm… Well! My name is Midnight Blitzer, youngest Lieutenant General of the Equestrian Armed Forces! And this here is Moonlight River, high ranking Lunar Guard and a Special OPs thestral bat pony, and my friend!” The blue pegasus said, recovering from confusion and eagerly shaking Discord’s claw. The creature couldn’t help but smile.

“Well Midnight, it’s very nice to see you here. I’ve heard various things about you from the other Discords, and it’s safe to say that you’ve had a pretty interesting adventure there.” The creature said, giving Midnight a wink, which caused the stallion to blink yet again. Discord decided to turn around and face Moonlight again, this time just raising an eyebrow at her, which floated off of his face. “I assume though that you didn’t arrive here just because you wanted to join the tea party, didn’t you?” The thestral simply shook her head.

“No. It’s something important Discord, something that you caused alongside the Plunderseeds, and we both know what we’re talking about.” Moonlight said, not trying to sound aggressive, but still staring at Discord with a neutral expression. The creature simply raised an eyebrow.

“You got to be more specific there, because I’m assuming you mean something related to chaos, and well I’m constantly full of it! I practically need to be chaotic to keep existing!” Discord exclaimed as he showed them a visible slider and moved the orb, shifting his transparency and nearly blinding the thestral when he turned it to the max.

“Ow! My eyes!” Moonlight yelled as she shut them and held a hoof to them, tentatively touching them before shaking her head, reorienting herself as her vision returned to her quickly. “I’m talking about No Nut November Discord! And I came here to ask you to lift the curse please because I want to spend time with Midnight. He’s very innocent and I wish to show him the… ropes of things.” The thestral said, causing both her and Fluttershy to blush at her implications. Discord however began to eat a bread that consisted of only its outer edges.

“Hmm… No Nut November… No Nut November… where did I hear that?” The discordant creature asked as he produced a pair of reading glasses and flipped through a book. “Oh that! Yes! NNN!” Discord exclaimed, closing the book before giving her an unapologetic shrug. “Sorry, but I can’t do anything about it.”

Moonlight simply blinked at Discord and was about to rebuke him until she noticed him grinning.

“Why are you smiling?” The thestral asked, this time sounding a bit nervous as she noticed his gaze falling on Midnight, who continued to blink at Discord.

“Oh well, I did say that I can’t do anything, but I didn’t say that anybody else couldn’t.” The chaotic creature said as he fell through the floor before appearing above, walking on the ceiling. “You see, back when I was being confronted by Celestia and Luna, not only did they reject my offer to eat some seeds, which ended up turning into the infamous Plunderseeds that even I forgot about, they also rejected the offer to play ‘Pin the Tail on the Pony’ with me. Of course, when they blasted me with the Elements of Harmony, all they thought they heard was me simply laughing, while in reality I just said a few simple words.” Discord said as he suddenly appeared in front of Midnight.

“Let the games begin.” Discord said, switching to a serious tone before he began to laugh. “Yep! Let the games begin! And thus NNN was born, because as my final moments arrived, I thought to myself: ‘Wouldn’t it be funny to curse Equestria with something nut related that required somepony to pass a test, but because I’m getting blasted with magic right now, I wouldn’t be able to give it to anyone for who knows how long and keep them trapped in that cycle forever until they free me and take the exam?’ And wouldn’t you know it! I did place that curse! Oh! It gave me so much laughter while I watched in my frozen state and saw them all fail as they didn’t know the rules! Of course, as time passed on and my statue slowly began to become periodically covered in that stuff, I began to become bored and forgot that I created it in the first place. But now that you’ve mentioned that you want to undo it, we can now play the game!” The draconequus said with excitement. Midnight slowly nodded in confusion as he looked at the creature

“Ok?... Uhm… How do we play then?” Midnight asked with curiosity. Before Discord could answer, they all heard the familiar sound effect of teleportation, and they all turned around to see a white stallion standing in front of them. Moonlight instantly began to sweat as Shining laid his sights on her, but luckily for her, he temporarily ignored her as he looked at Discord with grim determination, his horn sparking.

“Don’t you dare do anything to Midnight,” Shining commanded, looking at Discord with a serious expression. Fluttershy simply blinked at the white stallion’s sudden arrival.

“You want me to prepare some tea for you, Mister Shining Armor?” Fluttershy asked timidly, feeling a bit insecure with how things were starting to escalate. The unicorn blinked before smiling at her.

“That sounds fine. Thank you Fluttershy.” The white stallion said before turning to face Discord again, who simply blinked before smiling.

“Ah, so it seems that we’ve found our third player for the games then. Now if only a fourth pony could join.” Discord muttered, loud enough for Shining to hear.

“Fourth Player? Games? Discord, whatever you’re planning, you better stop right now-!”

“And I got you!” A familiar voice yelled, and all of the sudden a cyan blur went through the window before grabbing Midnight. Unfortunately for her, the cyan blue hadn’t taken account if the other window was open, and with her traveling at supersonic speeds, Rainbow could only gasp before crashing headfirst into the window on the other side of the cottage, knocking her onto the floor and causing her to become dizzy. Moonlight immediately rushed towards Midnight’s side before pulling him away as far as she could as Rainbow began to recover, and Fluttershy could only widen her eyes as she saw her other best friend having a set of crazy eyes on her face.

“And now the entire cast of players are here!” Discord exclaimed, clapping his hands before snapping his fingers, placing everybody in a chair while causing a board and a set of pieces to appear in the middle of the table. Rainbow immediately tried to lunge towards Midnight who sat right beside her, but bizarrely, she was glued to the table. She instantly glared at the draconequus who continued to set an assortment of board games on the table, games that were just there for decoration and nothing else.

“Discord! Let me have him! I know you created NNN, so why not let me bring your final victory for you while I get ‘the special stuff’. I need it!” The rainbow maned pegasus yelled before she began to laugh uncontrollably. Discord simply blinked at her before looking through his reference book, his face becoming slightly surprised as he landed on a specific page.

“Huh. Guess that spell had more profound effects than I thought.” Discord muttered, this time bringing Fluttershy’s attention to him as she spun around and stared at him.

“Discord…”

“What? It was not my fault that Rainbow stayed in her corrupted form long enough to somehow have part of the curse mess with her mind.” Discord said, twirling his hand around. He froze when Fluttershy’s gaze landed directly at his eyes as she used her most powerful technique. While he wasn’t directly affected by The Stare, he was still afraid of hurting his friendship with Fluttershy, as she was the only one he cared about.

“Change her back,” Fluttershy said in a low tone, surprising Shining as he noticed her shift in character. Discord though simply shrugged.

“I can’t. She’s connected to the curse as… hmm… can’t think of a cool name… The Detonator? Let’s go with that for now. And thus as long as it holds, she’ll continue to be addicted to… that stuff. Man… I was a completely different Discord back then, and honestly, now thinking about it, NNN completely doesn’t fit in with my style. Perhaps creating alternative realities and personalities of myself wasn’t a good idea after all.” Discord stated as he scratched his chin. Shining, Moonlight, and Fluttershy simply deadpanned while Rainbow continued to try and grapple Midnight. “Well anyway, I did say that the games have begun, however, since I just remembered that NNN was created by me and that I was supposed to prepare a challenge… eh… I have nothing prepared.” The chaotic creature said before looking straight at ‘you’.

“Perhaps some omnipresent form called ‘The Viewers’ can recommend some challenges for Midnight to pass. Now that would be interesting.” Discord said, causing everybody to look in the direction that he was looking at, only for them to become confused.

“Uhm Discord? Who are you talking to?” Fluttershy asked in confusion. He simply gave her a soft smile.

“Nothing much dear. Let’s just go back to the tea party, shall we? I’m certain that with a few helping hands I’ll come up with the first challenge.” Discord said with a grin. Fluttershy gave him a disapproving look before sighing.

“Just promise me you won’t do the same thing you did the last two times,” Fluttershy said, referencing how he had betrayed them both during Tirek’s return and when he created the Legion of Doom. Discord flinched a bit, taking some time to recover before smiling at her.

“I promise that I won’t do something villainous.” The discordant creature said, intending to keep his promise exactly as he said. Fluttershy nodded.

“Good. Now… anybody wants some carrot ginger sandwiches?” Fluttershy offered as she held up a plate of both regular ones and ones that had their crusts cut off. Midnight happily dove for one and began to eat it, prompting the rest to do the same, though it was apparent that there was tension present between Moonlight, Shining, and Rainbow Dash.

Discord meanwhile couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t like he was planning anything malicious, rather, he couldn’t wait for the amount of fun he’d get once the games began. Especially with how Rainbow would end up trying to interfere as much as she could and that there were two Hyper Stallions in play.

“Things are going to get much more interesting from here on out.” Discord thought as he silently chuckled.

Author's Note

If you have any potential challenges to pit Midnight, Shining, and Moonlight against, with Rainbow as the road bump, please comment down below! - Discord

I know the style is a bit rough after being absent from this story for quite some time, but give me some time and ideas and I'll be going ahead strong soon.