Chapter 6: Plans

“Are they going to be alright?” Twilight Sparkle asked Nurse Redheart. She, her friends, and the remainder of the Young Six were sitting near the beds where Gallus, Smolder, and Sandbar were laid on. They had been here for hours now, watching their friends recover and the monitors track their heartbeats. The place was silent and devoid of happiness. Even Pinkie became a bit serious, and while she’d tried to lighten their moods, she eventually went silent as well.

“They’ll be alright. The cut in Gallus’s neck was thankfully not deep enough to cut through his jugular vein, so he and the rest should be alright within a few days.” Redheart said, which caused Twilight to let out a sigh of relief. “I’m afraid though that there’s a chance that they’ll have to go through psychological treatment should they be going through trauma.” The white nurse said, causing the Princess of Friendship to frown. The purple alicorn simply looked at the fallen forms of her students in sadness.

“I just wish there’s something that I could do…” She mourned out loud, as she began to blame things on herself. Rainbow Dash flew up to her and lifted her face.

“Look Twilight. This isn’t your fault! This is all of the Masked Demon! We sh-”

“You do realize that his name isn’t ‘The Masked Demon’, right? That’s something Pinkie Pie would say.” Twilight corrected, trying to smile at Rainbow but unable to do so. The cyan pegasi shrugged.

“Who cares what his name is! The point here is that if you want to do something, then why don’t we try and imprison the guy who did all of this! He’s a threat to all of Equestria and if we don’t do anything to stop him he’s going to cause more destruction!” Rainbow Dash stated, only for Applejack to pull her down towards the ground.

“I agree with you Rainbow, however, we’re seriously unprepared. He clearly shows no hesitation to hurt and kill anyone. He even threatened the lives of Gallus, Smolder, and Sandbar. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to need everybody on our side.” Applejack said.

“But isn’t this like… against Friendship? Like shouldn’t we give him a chance to redeem himself?” Rarity asked. Applejack sighed and simply shrugged as she tipped her hat.

“Look, unless Gallus, Smolder, and Sandbar say otherwise, I believe that they’d tried to reason with this creature, only to be knocked out. Friendship isn’t going to help, just like how we tried repeatedly to reform Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis. Especially Chrysalis. If there’s any possibility to reform this creature, we’ll need to make sure that he’s not out in the open, threatening anybody.” Applejack said.

“Then… I guess we’re doing this then? We’re going to be tracking down this creature?” Twilight asked, uncertain if this was truly the correct action, though deep down, she knew it was necessary. He needed to go to prison. She was just unsure if everybody else was on board with risking their lives to hunt down this target. Luckily for her, everybody nodded. “Then I guess we’re going to do this. Rainbow! Head out to the Dragonlands and inform Dragon Lord Ember what’s occurring. Meanwhile, I and the rest of the girls will be going back to Canterlot to inform everybody of this creature on the loose. Every nation must be informed about this… this threat… and upon capturing the creature we’ll have to put it into prison.”

“Yes, Twilight! I can’t wait for when I punch his face with my hoof! He deserves it for hurting our friends!” Rainbow Dash said bravely before flying out, performing a Sonic Rainboom that was visible for miles as she headed out towards the Dragon Lands. The rest of the Mane 6 simply looked at Twilight for any orders.

“Since the magical feedback is still weakening my magic, you girls will go ahead and search Ponyville for any other signs and clues while I’ll teleport to Canterlot to have Spike write some letters. I might even have to contact Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They’ll know how to deal with this.” Twilight said. Applejack and the rest of the Mane 6 nodded, with Fluttershy being more shy than usual.

“You got that Twilight. If the creature comes back here, we’ll make sure that it never comes back.” Applejack said while grabbing a lasso. Twilight smiled softly at them.

“Stay safe.” The purple alicorn said as she began to power her horn, the space around the tip of it flickering as her teleportation spell grew. Her face showed a strained look as she struggled to teleport with the magical feedback having weakened her, but with a final push, the mare disappeared in a flicker of light, having successfully teleported back to Canterlot.

“Well, we’d better start searching. Detective Rarity will lead the way.” Rarity said as she quickly placed a detective jacket on top of her regular clothes, along with a hat with a red feather, before they left the hospital to try and find some clues.

After having cleared out an entire field of flowers, Dream continued to venture deeper and deeper into the forest, his confidence at an all-time high. Now, all that he needed for some fireworks would be some paper and gunpowder. The masked figure began to think about what other things he might end up needing.

“With all of these things in my inventory, maybe I should create an Ender Chest! I’d need to get Obsidian and Eyes of Ender to do that though… maybe I can find a backpack or bundle to expand my inventory then? Does that even exist in this mod?” Dream thought to himself, before blinking as he saw something through the thick leaves of the forest. Pushing the leaves away, the masked figure began to walk towards what he thought was a structure in the distance. Entering another clearing, he was surprised to see a small hut, decorated with some tribal things. He was about to ignore it until he heard the familiar sound of a brewing stand brewing a potion.

“No way… is this the mod’s version of a witch’s hut? Well, considering the castle gave me so many good things, let’s just loot this place too.” The masked figure thought to himself as he leaped through an open window. His eyes focused on the large cauldron in the center of the hut, an unknown substance bubbling inside of it. Dream found himself becoming disgusted by the sickly green liquid.

“For all I know it could have rotten flesh inside of it!” Dream spoke out loud, only to hear the sound of footsteps. The masked figure instinctively panicked, forgetting that he had diamond armor, and decided to grab a few pouches that were on a nearby table, before flinging himself out of another window. He didn’t even wait to see who was coming, he just ran. It might just as well be the hunters for all he knew.

Meanwhile, an anthropomorphic zebra wearing some leather clothing stepped into the hut. She grabbed a nearby cauldron spoon to stir the substance. Her hand instinctively reached towards the table to grab an ingredient, only to find nothing. Confusion spread across her face.

“This is weird. Why all of a sudden my pouches have disappeared?” The healer asked herself before sighing. “Guess I’ll get some supplies- wait, my bag of bits is gone, what an awful surprise!” The zebra exclaimed in shock to herself as she noticed that various other pouches that were full of materials were gone. “...”

The zebra doesn’t take any hesitation to slam her head against the table.

“Welp. That failed.” George said as he, BadBoyHalo, and Sapnap found themselves sitting in the middle of nowhere. After the traumatic experience of being cut down one by one by their former friend, the three had respawned in the forest, albeit in a different location than where they started with.

“Obviously,” Sapnap said, rolling his eyes. Their plan to take out Dream early on had failed, which caused him to feel disappointed with himself. The black-hooded figure next to them simply slammed his fists onto the ground.

“Dang it! Like, why diamond armor!? How are we going to win against him now!? We can’t punch trees, he probably looted the entire village, he’s too overpowered! There’s nothing that we can do against him!” BadBoyHalo yelled, before smashing his head against the dirt.

“Like I’m sure we can think of something,” George said hopefully, before scratching his chin as he remembered something, or rather, someone. “Wait, where’s Ant? I don’t think he died yet.” George commented, which caused the other two to think. They practically left him after he went unconscious after his failed attempt to punch a tree. And since he wasn’t with them, was he still out there, fighting Dream or gathering resources?

“Well, wherever he is, he’ll have a hard time fighting against Dream. Even if Dream left some things unlooted, I doubt he’ll be able to get anything more than iron gear.” Sapnap stated, before lifting himself. “Whatever is the case, we have to stay determined. I’m sure we’ll figure out something.” The fire-shirted man stated. Bad lifted his head from the ground and nodded, smiling with determination.

“Yeah! We’ll think of something that Dream will never imagine, and we’ll destroy him! Just like how it only took Ant two Potions of Harming to bring him down, we’ll find a way to make his diamond gear useless!” Bad stated, before realizing something. “Hey! Why don’t we go to the village he looted?”

“And why would that be a good idea? We already guessed that he’d loot every single building.” George replied, only for Bad to shake his head with a grin.

“Yeah! But he’ll never be able to take the villagers! Think about it! The fastest way right now to gain items quickly is to do villager trades, and I’m pretty certain that it’ll only take us a few days to reach some very high-tear things like Protection IV Books, Diamond Gear, and more! And you know what’s the best thing? He can’t use the Nether Portal trick on us again!”

“But he won’t need to use the Nether Portal trick on us. If you’re right that it’ll take us some days to get overpowered like he is, he’ll already have probably returned from the Nether by then.” Sapnap said before they began to hear Bad laugh.

“If I know anything about RLCraft, it’s that the Nether is nearly impossible to go through in that mod. Heck, even Dragon Armor, the most strongest Armor in RLCraft, makes no promises in saving somebody there! RLCraft is designed to be super deadly! He’ll be bogged down long enough for us to find his Nether portal and wait for his return! He won’t be enchanting his items because he’ll be overconfident! We’ll be able to do a Catch-22 and destroy him!” Bad exclaimed. The two other hunters nodded with a smile, finding his plan very good.

“Well then, what are we waiting for!? Let’s go get some villager trades!” George said as he and the rest of the Hunters began to try and find their way around the forest, hoping that they’ll find the village again and begin their master plan.

A TV screen flickered, showing everybody’s positions and what they were doing. A lone draconequus sat in a dark room, observing everything while feeling regrets.

“I didn’t expect things to go downhill like that.” Discord thought to himself, thinking about the pain that Smolder, Sandbar, and Gallus must’ve been going in the hospital bed. “All I wanted was for them to stay isolated in the Everfree and deal with the monsters there, not find Ponyville and hurt the students.” The Lord of Chaos let out a sigh. “Like, what can I do? I’ll have to wait for Twilight and her friends to call on me to help them, as otherwise if I suddenly arrived and said I’d helped, they’d get suspicious of me. I’ve already failed them one with the Legion of Doom. I don’t want to lose my friends because of this.”

Discord snapped his fingers, and the TV, instead of turning off, grew two legs and ran up the wall before disappearing in a vortex. He let out a soft smile, before frowning yet again.

“I don’t know what I’ll do. Wait until I’m called on? Help Dream, the Hunters, or nobody? If I’m going to help anybody, I think I might end up helping the Hunters and the Mane 6. Yeah, I’ll do that.” Discord said as he snapped his fingers again, and unbeknownst to the Hunters, their position was changed upon entering deeper into the Forest, in a way so that when they’d enter into the next clearing, they'd find themselves onto the tracks of Ponyville.

“And only that. That’s right now the only way I’ll interfere. I’ll help by indirectly balancing stuff. Twilight and her friends will probably help the Hunters. I just hope that the Hunters won’t begin to destroy things. I’m the Lord of Chaos, not the Lord of Destruction. Also if they’d somehow continued their trek without losing hunger, they would’ve stumbled upon this cottage, and I wouldn’t want to risk Sapnap killing some of her pets, thinking that they were food.”

Discord found himself mentally playing some events from a different series. One that was named by the creator of the server. The Dream SMP. Discord loved the action and chaos that occurred, especially when Technoblade joined the fun and started to bring everything into anarchy, or when Bad created the BadLands and found The Egg. Discord also remembered seeing the Pet Wars, and how Sapnap was the cause of so many pet deaths.

“That guy… he’s as powerful as Dream in a way. A powerful PvP player. Always trying to go in for the kill, and always the most aggressive. I just hope that his aggressiveness doesn’t become a problem though.” Discord thought as he recalled more events of the Dream SMP.

“Like, I might end up having to help both Dream and the Hunters. I know what they’re capable of. I’m going to have to keep them sane… otherwise… who knows what’ll happen then?” The Lord of Chaos thought to himself, playing back some memories. Again, with how Sapnap started the Pet Wars, BadBoyHalo becoming possessed by The Egg, and Dream… and Dream…

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if Dream went insane and decided to target Equestria itself. He knew that much of The Dream SMP was scripted, much like how his world was scripted, but Discord also knew that there was a difference between knowing something and feeling it. Already, just thinking of the pure destruction that one man could cause had begun to frighten the Lord of Chaos, which he found to be ironic, given that the Mane 6 and everybody else were frightened during his reign over Equestria and Ponyville when he was not yet reformed.

It was just recently that Discord had begun to think about how many things could’ve gone wrong. The Legion of Doom would have easily killed Twilight’s friends, and it would’ve been all his fault for forming it in the first place. Friendship can solve many problems, but unfortunately, with the inclusion of those whose SMP counterparts believed nothing in friendship, but in war, would Friendship still save the day? Or will it be the first and final time where Friendship would collapse under the power of War?

“As long as I can keep their sanity, Equestria will be safe, but the moment I fail to do that…

who knows what’ll happen…”

Author's Note

Oh no, Discord beginning to realize the error he's made. Will he decide to help Dream to speed up his progress and lower the chances that he'll go insane, or will he help the Hunters by balancing the hunt for Dream?

Hope you guys liked this chapter. I couldn't really find any music to play here though, since the mood constantly swung left and right. Maybe only during chases it'll be done, or entering a new environment.

Also, I wrote this story immediately after publishing the last chapter to see if it was better to start early or during the middle of the deadline. Next week there might be a chance that this story doesn't get published because of another project, but hopefully, I can do it still.